hen them gals was here. I hate 'em and they hates me. That's why. You
keep school, don't you? I want to be teached!"

If to the shabbiness of her apparel and uncomeliness of her tangled
hair and dirty face she had added the humility of tears, the master
would have extended to her the usual moiety of pity, and nothing more.
But with the natural, tho illogical instincts of his species, her
boldness awakened in him something of that respect which all original
natures pay unconsciously to one another in any grade. And he gazed at
her the more fixedly as she went on still rapidly, her hand on that
door-latch and her eyes on his:

"My name's M'liss--M'liss Smith! You can bet your life on that. My
father's Old Smith--Old Bummer Smith--that's what's the matter with
him. M'liss Smith--and I'm coming to school!"

"Well?" said the master.

Accustomed to be thwarted and opposed, often wantonly and cruelly, for
no other purpose than to excite the violent impulses of her nature,
the master's phlegm evidently took her by surprize. She stopt; she
began to twist a lock of her hair between her fingers; and the rigid
line of upper lip, drawn over the wicked little teeth, relaxed and
quivered slightly. Then her eyes dropt, and something like a blush
struggled up to her cheek, and tried to assert itself through the
splashes of redder soil, and the sunburn of years. Suddenly she threw
herself forward, calling on God to strike her dead, and fell quite
weak and helpless, with her face on the master's desk, crying and
sobbing as if her heart would break.

HENRY JAMES

Born in 1843; son of the elder Henry James; educated in
Europe; studied law at Harvard; began to write for
periodicals in 1866; has lived mostly in England since 1869;
"A Passionate Pilgrim" published in 1875, "The American" in
1877, "French Poets and Novelists" in 1878, "Daisy Miller"
in 1878, "Life of Hawthorne" in 1879, "Portrait of a Lady"
in 1881, "A Little Tour in France" in 1884, "The Bostonians"
in 1886, "What Maisie Knew" in 1897, "The Awkward Age" in
1899, "The Sacred Fount" in 1901.

I

AMONG THE MALVERN HILLS[66]

Between the fair boundaries of the counties of Hereford and Worcester
rise in a long undulation the sloping pastures of the Malvern Hills.
Consulting a big red book on the castles and manors of England, we
found Lockley Park to be seated near the base of this grassy range,
tho in which co