ge and very dark
blue, and they were set in deep, pathetic hollows. As she looked up
at Maria, it was exactly as if George were looking at her with
pleading and timid love. Maria took her arm sudden away from the
child.

"Be you mad?" asked Jessy, humbly.

"No, I am not," replied Maria. "But you should not say 'be you mad';
you should say are you angry."

"Yes'm," said Jessy Ramsey.

Jessy withdrew, still with timid eyes of devotion fixed upon her
teacher, and Maria seated herself behind her desk, took out some
paper, and began to write an exercise for the children to copy upon
the black-board. She was trembling from head to foot. She felt
exactly as if George Ramsey had been looking at her with eyes of
love, and she remembered that she was married, and it seemed to her
that she was horribly guilty.

Maria never once looked again at Jessy Ramsey, at least not fully in
the eyes, during the day. The child's mouth began to assume a piteous
expression. After school that afternoon she lingered, as usual, to
walk the little way before their roads separated, so to speak, in her
beloved teacher's train. But Maria spoke quite sharply to her.

"You had better run right home, Jessy," she said. "It is snowing, and
you will get cold. I have a few things to see to before I go. Run
right home."

Poor little Jessy Ramsey, who was as honestly in love with her
teacher as she would ever be with any one in her life, turned
obediently and went away. Maria's heart smote her.

"Jessy," she called after her, and the child turned back half
frightened, half radiant. Maria put her arm around her and kissed
her. "Wash your face before you come to school to-morrow, dear," she
said. "Now, good-bye."

"Yes'm," said Jessy, and she skipped away quite happy. She thought
teacher had rebuffed her because her face was not washed, and that
did not trouble her in the least. Lack of cleanliness or lack of
morals, when brought home to them, could hardly sting any scion of
that branch of the Ramseys. Lack of affection could, however, and
Jessy was quite happy in thinking that teacher loved her, and was
only vexed because her face was dirty. Jessy had not gone a dozen
paces from the school-house before she stopped, scooped up some snow
in a little, grimy hand, and rubbed her cheeks violently. Then she
wiped them on her new petticoat. Her cheeks tingled frightfully, but
she felt that she was obeying a mandate of love.

Maria did not see her. She in