resolved to stop any objection to her return on the score of
deficiencies. He was obliged in self-defence to take particular note of
some rings she wore, and a large bracelet that ostentatiously glittered
on her white arm--which had already attracted the attention of her
companions, and prompted the audible comment from Johnny Filgee that
it was "truly gold." Without meeting her eyes he contented himself with
severely restraining the glances of the children that wandered in her
direction. She had never been quite popular with the school in her
previous role of fiancee, and only Octavia Dean and one or two older
girls appreciated its mysterious fascination; while the beautiful
Rupert, secure in his avowed predilection for the middle-aged wife
of the proprietor of the Indian Spring hotel, looked upon her as a
precocious chit with more than the usual propensity to objectionable
"breathing." Nevertheless the master was irritatingly conscious of her
presence--a presence which now had all the absurdity of her ridiculous
love-experiences superadded to it. He tried to reason with himself that
it was only a phase of frontier life, which ought to have amused him.
But it did not. The intrusion of this preposterous girl seemed to
disarrange the discipline of his life as well as of his school. The
usual vague, far-off dreams in which he was in the habit of indulging
during school-hours, dreams that were perhaps superinduced by the
remoteness of his retreat and a certain restful sympathy in his little
auditors, which had made him--the grown-up dreamer--acceptable to them
in his gentle understanding of their needs and weaknesses, now seemed to
have vanished forever.

At recess, Octavia Dean, who had drawn near Cressy and reached up
to place her arm round the older girl's waist, glanced at her with
a patronizing smile born of some rapid free-masonry, and laughingly
retired with the others. The master at his desk, and Cressy who had
halted in the aisle were left alone.

"I have had no intimation yet from your father or mother that you were
coming back to school again," he began. "But I suppose THEY have decided
upon your return?"

An uneasy suspicion of some arrangement with her former lover had
prompted the emphasis.

The young girl looked at him with languid astonishment. "I reckon paw
and maw ain't no objection," she said with the same easy ignoring of
parental authority that had characterized Rupert Filgee, and which
seemed to