body; but a
smart little scholar like you must see lots of mistakes in me."

At this point, Pet would blush, and murmur, "No--no!"

"Humbug!" Mrs. Crull would say. "I know my incurable faults, and I know
that you know 'em. But Lor' bless you, child! there is plenty of ladies
in good s'ciety" (Mrs. C. always slurred on the first syllable of that
word) "who talk as bad as me. Their husbands, just like mine, got rich
suddenly, you see. I tell you, I was 'stonished to find how many of 'em
there was. They are thicker'n blackberries. I found out something else,
too." Here Mrs. Crull would shake her head knowingly, like one who had
discovered a great truth.

Pet would know what was coming, but would ask: "Pray, what is it, Mrs.
Crull?"

"Why, I found out that, if you give good dinners and big parties, and
keep a carriage, and have a conservatory, and rent a pew up near the
altar, your little shortcomin's in grammar isn't no objection to you.
'Money makes the mare go.' However, eddication, as Miss Pillbody says,
is a good thing of itself, and I shall keep on tryin' to get it."

These conversations always ended by an invitation to Pet to visit Mrs.
Crull. "I'll have our carriage call for you," she would say, "at your
father's house. We have no children, you know, and the old man would be
very good to you; though, of course, it wouldn't do to hint about the
school. But I can trust my little friend for that. Come, now,
won't you?"

But Pet always modestly declined these kind invitations. She knew her
father's pride, and his aversion to the patronage of rich people.

CHAPTER II.

THE FALLING BOARD.

One afternoon, Pet had been taking an extra lesson from Miss Pillbody,
and had started homeward with a light heart, humming to herself a
musical exercise which she had practised for the first time that day. A
few doors from Miss Pillbody's, some workmen were repairing a wooden
awning. The framework was covered with loose boards, which the
carpenters were about to nail down. A feminine dread of danger would
have induced Pet to make a wide detour of this awning; but her mind was
so fully occupied by the musical exercise, that she walked, unheeding,
right under it.

"Look out! look out!" shrieked a chorus of voices overhead, accompanied
by a rattle of falling boards. Pet sprang forward just in time to escape
one of them, and to catch another on her shoulder. It touched her
gently, not even abrading her skin, for its fall h