ght out a neighbor who had a pair of sheep-shears, and Mr. Murphy
cropped the boy's hair close to his scalp. The latter remained a
pea-green color and being practically hairless, Neale looked worse than
a Mexican dog!

He was not at all the same looking youth who had dawned on Agnes' vision
the Monday morning previous, and had come to her rescue. She said
herself she never would have known him.

"Oh, dear!" she said to Ruth. "He looks like a gnome out of a funny
picture-book."

But Neale O'Neil pulled his cap down to his ears and followed behind the
Kenway girls to school. He was too proud and too sensitive to walk with
them.

He knew that he was bound to be teased by the boys at school, when once
they saw his head. Even the old cobbler had said to him:

"'Tis a foine lookin' noddle ye have now. Ye look like a tinder grane
onion sproutin' out of the garden in the spring. Luk out as ye go over
th' fince, me la-a-ad, for if that ormadhoun of a goat sees ye, he'll
ate ye alive!"

This was at the breakfast table, and Neale had flushed redly, being half
angry with the old fellow.

"That's right, la-a-ad," went on Mr. Murphy. "Blushin' ain't gone out o'
fashion where you kem from, I'm glad ter see. An' begorra! ye're more
pathriotic than yer name implies, for I fear that's Scotch instead of
Irish. I see now ye've put the grane above the red!"

So Neale went to school on this first day in no very happy frame of
mind. He looked so much different with his hair cropped, from what he
had at church on Sunday, that few of the young folks who had observed
his disgrace there, recognized him--for which the boy was exceedingly
glad.

He remained away from the Kenway girls, and in that way escaped
recognition. He had to get acquainted with some of the
fellows--especially those of the highest grammar grade. Being a new
scholar, he had to meet the principal of the school, as well as Miss
Shipman.

"Take your cap off, sir," said Mr. Marks, sternly. Unwillingly enough he
did so. "For goodness' sake! what have you been doing to your head?"
demanded the principal.

"Getting my hair clipped, sir," said Neale.

"But the color of your head?"

"That's why I had the hair clipped."

"What did you do to it?"

"It was an accident, sir," said Neale. "But I can study just as well."

"We will hope so," said the principal, his eyes twinkling. "But green is
not a promising color."

Ruth had taken Dot to the teacher of the first grad