ool.

Afterwards I heard that she owed her position to Aunt Bridget, who had
exercised her influence through the chairman, by means of his account
with the Big House. Perhaps she thought it her duty to display her
gratitude. Certainly she lost no time in showing me that my character
had gone to school before me, for in order that I might be directly
under her eye, she placed me in the last seat in the lowest class,
although my mother's daily teaching would have entitled me to go higher.

I dare say I was, as Father Dan used to say, as full of mischief as a
goat, and I know I was a chatterbox, but I do not think I deserved the
fate that followed.

One day, not more than a week after we had been sent to school. I held
my slate in front of my face while I whispered something to the girl
beside and the girl behind me. Both began to titter.

"Silence!" cried the schoolmistress, who was sitting at her desk, but I
went on whispering and the girls began to choke with laughter.

I think the schoolmistress must have thought I was saying something
about herself--making game, perhaps, of her personal appearance--for
after a moment she said, in her rapid accents:

"Mary O'Neill, please repeat what you have just been saying."

I held my slate yet closer to my face and made no answer.

"Don't you hear, miss? Speak! You've a tongue in your head, haven't
you?"

But still I did not answer, and then the schoolmistress said:

"Mary O'Neill, come forward."

She had commanded me like a dog, and like a dog I was about to obey when
I caught sight of Betsy Beauty's face, which, beaming with satisfaction,
seemed to be saying: "Now, we shall see."

I would not stir after that, and the schoolmistress, leaving her desk,
came towards me, and looking darkly into my face, said:

"You wilful little vixen, do you think you can trifle with me? Come out,
miss, this very moment."

I knew where that language came from, so I made no movement.

"Don't you hear? Or do you suppose that because you are pampered and
spoiled by a foolish person at home, you can defy _me_?"

That reflection on my mother settled everything. I sat as rigid as a
rock.

Then pale as a whitewashed wall, and with her thin lips tightly
compressed, the schoolmistress took hold of me to drag me out of my
seat, but with my little nervous fingers I clung to the desk in front of
me, and as often as she tore one of my hands open the other fixed itself
afresh.

"You minx!