herself to the necessary sacrifice of dignity. After all,
Allegheny was only an overgrown child in need of advanced kindergarten
training, and in the meantime there was the prospect of a season at
Burlington Notch. The latter was, in itself, a prospect alluring to one
suffering from the wear and tear of a trying profession. After some
hesitation, Mrs. Ring had accepted the position, feeling sure that it
would rest her nerves.

But never had the good woman suffered such a disillusionment. Allie,
she soon discovered, was anything but a child, or rather she was an
amazing and contradictory combination of child and adult. What Mrs.
Ring had taken to be mental apathy, inherent dullness, was in reality
caution, diffidence, the shyness of some wild animal.

Nor was that the most bewildering of the teacher's surprises; Allie
possessed character and will power. For some time she had accepted Mrs.
Ring's tutorship without comment or question--Calvin Gray had
recommended it, therefore she obeyed blindly--but one day, after they
had become settled in the mountains, she came out with a forceful
declaration.

She knew full well her own shortcomings, so she declared, and she was
not content to learn a few things day by day. She demanded intensified
training; education under forced draught.

"They took green country boys durin' the war--"

"During the war. Don't drop your g's, my dear."

"--during the war, and learned 'em--"

"Taught them!"

"--taught them to be soldiers in six months. Well, I'm strong as a
horse, and I've got a brain, and I'm quick at pickin'--I mean I pick up
things quick--"

"You pick them up quickly. Quickly is an adverb; quick is an--"

Allie's dark eyes grew darker. Imperiously she cried: "All right! But
let me say this my own way. It won't be right or elegant, but you'll
understand. And that's what we got to have first off--a good
understanding. After I've said it, you can rub it down and curry it. I
been watching you like a hawk, Miz' Ring, and you're just what he said
you was. You got everything I want, but--I can't go so slow; I got to
get it quick--quickly. You been teaching me to read and talk, and how
to laugh, and how to set--sit--but we been _playing_. We got to _work_!
Oh, I know I'm forgetting everything for a minute. Miz' Ring, I gotta
learn how to act pretty and talk pretty and _look_ pretty. And I gotta
learn how, _quick_."

"You are a fine-looking girl as it is, Allegheny."

"Oh, I