n--which
condition varied according to the page in the Book, for Miss Lizzie was
the Cruel Step-mother, Miss Lizzie was the Wicked Fairy Godmother, Miss
Lizzie was the Ogress, the wife of the terrible giant.

One told Rosalie. But Rosalie went even further. Miss Lizzie was the
grim and terrible Ogress who dwelt in her lonely castle. True. The
school-house was the castle of the Ogress. And the forty little girls in
the Fourth Reader were the captives--the captive Princesses--kept by
Miss Lizzie until certain tasks were performed.

One looked at Problems differently now. One saw Copy-books through a
glamour. They were tasks, and each task done, the nearer release from
Miss Lizzie.

Did one fail--?

Emmy Lou held her breath. Rosalie spoke softly: "The lady at the
window--her finger at her lips--she had failed--"

Miss Lizzie was the Ogress, and the lady was the Princess--the captive
Princess--waiting at the window for release.

And so one played one's part. And so Emmy Lou and Rosalie moved and
lived and dreamed in the glamour and the world of the Green and Gold
Book.

It stayed in one's desk--sometimes with Alice, or with Amanthus,
sometimes with Rosalie. To-day it was with Emmy Lou.

One never read in school. But at recess, on the steps outside the big
door, one read aloud in turn while the others ate their apples. And
Hattie came, too, when she liked, and Sadie. But one carried the book
home, that one might not be parted from it.

To-day it was with Emmy Lou. It had certain treasures between its
leaves. One expects to find faint sweet rose-leaves between the pages of
the Green and Gold Book, and the scrap of tinsel recalls the gleam and
shimmer of the goose girl's ball-dress of woven moonbeams.

To-day the book was in Emmy Lou's desk.

Emmy Lou was at the board. It was Problems. She did not need a book.
Miss Lizzie dictated when one was at the board. Emmy Lou was poor at
Problems and Miss Lizzie was cross about it.

Sadie, at her desk, needed a book. She had forgotten her Arithmetic, and
asked permission to borrow Emmy Lou's.

[Illustration: "You hadn't any right."]

She went to get it. She pulled it out. Sadie had a way of being
unfortunate. She also pulled another book out which fell open on the
floor, shedding rose-leaves and tinsel.

The green and gold glitter of the book caught Miss Lizzie's eye.

Her fingers had been tearing at bits of paper all morning until her desk
was strewn.

"Bring it