heroically, at any cost. I reflected, not
without a shade of annoyance, that I had forgotten to say my prayers,
after all. At the same time I had a sort of conviction that it wasn't so
unfortunate a remissness on my part as it would have been for some less
qualified by nature to take care of themselves.

I discovered the school-house at the end of the lane. The general air of
the Wallencamp houses was stranded and unsettled, as though, detained in
their present position for some brief and restless season, they dreamed
ever of unknown voyages yet to be made on the sea of life. They were very
poor, very old. Some of them were painted red in front, some of them had
only a red door, being otherwise quite brown and unadorned. There was one
exception,--Emily Gaskell's--that stood on the hill, and was painted all
over and had green blinds.

I heard a mighty rushing sound mingled with whoops and yells and the
terrible clamp of running feet, and was made aware that a detachment from
my flock was coming up the lane to meet me.

A girl, taller than I, with stooping shoulders and a piquant and
good-natured cast of features, seized my hand and swung it in childish
and confiding fashion. She had warts. I wondered, uneasily, if they would
be contagious through my gloves.

I was struck with the uncommon beauty of one sturdy little fellow. He was
barefooted (on Cape Cod, in January), and ragged enough to have satisfied
the most crazy devotee of the picturesque. His shapely head was set on
his shoulders in an exceedingly high-bred way, while its bad archangel
effect was intensified by rings of curling black hair and great,
seductive black eyes.

The children walked back, in comparative quiet, toward the school-house,
except this boy. To him care was evidently a thing unknown. He managed,
while keeping the distance undiminished between himself and me, to
perform a great variety of antics, in which, by way of an occasional
relief, his head was seen to rise above his heels.

Emily's wash had been left out to dry during the night. The wind had torn
various articles from the line and carried them down in the direction of
the lane fence.

My gymnastic-performing imp vanished through the bars. In an incredibly
short space of time he reappeared, clothed--but, alas! I cannot tell how
the imp was clothed, except to say that Emily being a tall, woman and the
imp but a well-grown boy of ten, the effect was strangely voluminous and
oriental.