he platform--oh, climax of
exaltation!--to be interviewed by the distinguished strangers; while
the class took advantage of the teacher's distraction, to hold
forbidden intercourse on matters not prescribed in the curriculum.
When I returned to my seat, after such public audience with the great,
I looked to see if Lizzie McDee was taking notice; and Lizzie, who was
a generous soul, her Sunday-school airs notwithstanding, generally
smiled, and I forgave her her rhymes.

Not but what I paid a price for my honors. With all my self-possession
I had a certain capacity for shyness. Even when I arose to recite
before the customary audience of my class I suffered from incipient
stage fright, and my voice trembled over the first few words. When
visitors were in the room I was even more troubled; and when I was
made the special object of their attention my triumph was marred by
acute distress. If I was called up to speak to the visitors, forty
pairs of eyes pricked me in the back as I went. I stumbled in the
aisle, and knocked down things that were not at all in my way; and my
awkwardness increasing my embarrassment I would gladly have changed
places with Lizzie or the bad boy in the back row; anything, only to
be less conspicuous. When I found myself shaking hands with an august
School-Committeeman, or a teacher from New York, the remnants of my
self-possession vanished in awe; and it was in a very husky voice that
I repeated, as I was asked, my name, lineage, and personal history. On
the whole, I do not think that the School-Committeeman found a very
forward creature in the solemn-faced little girl with the tight curls
and the terrible red-and-green "plaid."

These awful audiences did not always end with the handshaking.
Sometimes the great personages asked me to write to them, and
exchanged addresses with me. Some of these correspondences continued
through years, and were the source of much pleasure, on one side at
least. And Arlington Street took notice when I received letters with
important-looking or aristocratic-looking letterheads. Lizzie McDee
also took notice. _I_ saw to that.

CHAPTER XII

MIRACLES

It was not always in admiration that the finger was pointed at me. One
day I found myself the centre of an excited group in the middle of the
schoolyard, with a dozen girls interrupting each other to express
their disapproval of me. For I had coolly told them, in answer to a
question, that I did not believe i