mp hands, with
her eyes fixed on the long, closely written columns of her large slate.
She was not sitting in her own seat, her seat was the back seat on the
girls' side, of course, but she was sitting midway on the boys' side, and
her slate was placed on the side of the double desk wherein H.R. was cut
in deep, ugly letters. She had fled to this seat as to a refuge, when she
found herself alone, with something of the same feeling, that once two or
three years ago when she was away from home and homesick she used to
kneel to say her prayers in the corner of the chamber where her valise
was; there was home about the valise and there was protection and safety
and a sort of helpfulness about this desk where her friend Hollis Rheid
had sat ever since she had come to school. This was her first winter at
school, her mother had taught her at home, but in family council this
winter it had been decided that Marjorie was "big" enough to go to
school.

The half mile home seemed a long way to walk alone, and the huge
Newfoundland at the farmhouse down the hill was not always chained; he
had sprung out at them this morning and the girls had huddled together
while Hollis and Frank Grey had driven him inside his own yard. Hollis
had thrown her an intelligent glance as he filed out with the boys, and
had telegraphed something back to her as he paused for one instant at the
door. Not quite understanding the telegraphic signal, she was waiting for
him, or for something. His lips had looked like: "Wait till I come." If
the people at home were not anxious about her she would have been willing
to wait until midnight; it would never occur to her that Hollis might
forget her.

Her cheeks flushed as she waited, and her eyes filled with tears; it was
a soft, warm, round face, with coaxing, kissable lips, a smooth, low brow
and the gentlest of hazel eyes: not a pretty face, excepting in its
lovely childishness and its hints of womanly graces; some of the girls
said she was homely. Marjorie thought herself that she was very homely;
but she had comforted herself with, "God made my face, and he likes it
this way." Some one says that God made the other features, but permits us
to make the mouth. Marjorie's sweetness certainly made her mouth. But
then she was born sweet. Josie Grey declared that she would rather see a
girl "get mad" than cry, as Marjorie did when the boys washed her face in
the snow.

Mr. Holmes had written to a friend that Marjor