for the starched frocks and unblemished
morals of the two pink-and-white-faced children of the first families,
the reverend gentleman had her ignominiously expelled. Such were the
antecedents, and such the character of Mliss as she stood before the
master. It was shown in the ragged dress, the unkempt hair, and bleeding
feet, and asked his pity. It flashed from her black, fearless eyes, and
commanded his respect.

"I come here tonight," she said rapidly and boldly, keeping her hard
glance on his, "because I knew you was alone. I wouldn't come here when
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, though 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 Mliss--Mliss Smith! You can bet your life on that. My
father's Old Smith--Old Bummer Smith--that's what's the matter with him.
Mliss 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 surprise. She stopped; 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 dropped, 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.

The master lifted her gently and waited for the paroxysm to pass. When,
with face still averted, she was repeating between her sobs the MEA
CULPA of childish penitence--that "she'd be good, she didn't mean to,"
etc., it came to him to ask her why she had left Sabbath school.

Why had she left the Sabbath school?--why? Oh, yes. What did h