o need, for I am going to ask you
to help me, Ophelia, and not give me more work to do. There are so many
girls, and if they are tiresome, my work grows very, very hard."

"The girls are very tiresome, please, teacher."

"Then why don't you help me in trying to keep them quiet? You do know
so much better."

The girl looked up at her with one eye, and a general aspect as if some
progenitor had been a magpie.

"I mean it, Ophelia. You are a quick, clever girl, and know so much
better. It grieves me when you will play tricks, and make my work so
hard."

"Please, teacher, may I go now? Mother wants me."

"You shall go directly, Ophelia; but I want you to promise me that you
will be a better girl."

"Please, teacher, mother leathers the boys if they don't get home in
time for dinner, and dinner must be ready now."

"You shall go directly, my child; but will you promise me?"

"If I don't get home to dinner, teacher, I shan't be 'lowed to come
'safternoon."

"Then you will not promise me, Ophelia?"

The girl gave a half-sulky, half-cunning look at the speaker, and then,
taking a weary nod of the head to mean permission, she darted away, and
the schoolroom door closed after her with a loud bang.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

NOSEGAYS ARE NOT ALWAYS SWEET.

"Please, teacher, I've brought you some flowers."

Hazel Thorne turned round, to find that the speaker was Feelier Potts,
who was holding up a goodly bunch of roses, snapdragons, rose bay, and
other homely flowers tied up with some considerable amount of taste,
save that the band which held the blossoms against a good background of
ribbon grass was a long strip of flannel list, that made the bunch bulky
and strange.

There was a curious, half-defiant, half-smiling look in the girl's face,
as she handed the nosegay, and Hazel hesitated for a moment, and looked
severe, for it was as if the flowers were meant as a peace-offering or
bribe, to act as a passport in connection with Miss Feelier Potts'
evasion on the previous day.

Feelier saw the look, and was drawing back the nosegay with her
expressive young face full of chagrin, but she brightened directly as
her teacher smiled, took the flowers, smelt them, and said--

"How sweet! Thank you, Ophelia. Will you be kind enough to go indoors
for me, and ask for a jug of water to place them in?"

"Yes, teacher," cried the girl excitedly, and she rushed off, to come
back with the jug, into which the flowe