Cressy | Page 9

it was consequently with some
satisfaction that he overheard fragments of his openly disparaging
comments upon his worshippers.
"There!" to Clarinda Jones, "don't flop! And don't YOU," to Octavia
Dean, "go on breathing over my head like that. If there's anything I hate
it's having a girl breathing round me. Yes, you were! I felt it in my hair.
And YOU too--you're always snoopin' and snoodgin'. Oh, yes, you

want to know WHY I've got an extry copy-book and another 'Rithmetic,
Miss Curiosity. Well, what would you give to know? Want to see if
they're PRETTY" (with infinite scorn at the adjective). "No, they ain't
PRETTY. That's all you girls think about--what's PRETTY and what's
curious! Quit now! Come! Don't ye see teacher lookin' at you? Ain't
you ashamed?"
He caught the master's beckoning eye and came forward, slightly
abashed, with a flush of irritation still on his handsome face, and his
chestnut curls slightly rumpled. One, which Octavia had covertly
accented by twisting round her forefinger, stood up like a crest on his
head.
"I've told Uncle Ben that you might help him here after school hours,"
said the master, taking him aside. "You may therefore omit your
writing exercise in the morning and do it in the afternoon."
The boy's dark eyes sparkled. "And if it would be all the same to you,
sir," he added earnestly, "you might sorter give out in school that I was
to be kept in."
"I'm afraid that would hardly do," said the master, much amused. "But
why?"
Rupert's color deepened. "So ez to keep them darned girls from foolin'
round me and followin' me back here."
"We will attend to that," said the master smiling; a moment after he
added more seriously, "I suppose your father knows that you are to
receive money for this? And he doesn't object?"
"He! Oh no!" returned Rupert with a slight look of astonishment, and
the same general suggestion of patronizing his progenitor that he had
previously shown to his younger brother. "You needn't mind HIM." In
reality Filgee pere, a widower of two years' standing, had tacitly
allowed the discipline of his family to devolve upon Rupert.
Remembering this, the master could only say, "Very well," and
good-naturedly dismiss the pupil to his seat and the subject from his

mind. The last laggard had just slipped in, the master had glanced over
the occupied benches with his hand upon his warning bell, when there
was a quick step on the gravel, a flutter of skirts like the sound of
alighting birds, and a young woman lightly entered.
In the rounded, untouched, and untroubled freshness of her cheek and
chin, and the forward droop of her slender neck, she appeared a girl of
fifteen; in her developed figure and the maturer drapery of her full
skirts she seemed a woman; in her combination of naive recklessness
and perfect understanding of her person she was both. In spite of a few
school-books that jauntily swung from a strap in her gloved hand, she
bore no resemblance to a pupil; in her pretty gown of dotted muslin
with bows of blue ribbon on the skirt and corsage, and a cluster of roses
in her belt, she was as inconsistent and incongruous to the others as a
fashion-plate would have been in the dry and dog-eared pages before
them. Yet she carried it off with a demure mingling of the naivete of
youth and the aplomb of a woman, and as she swept down the narrow
aisle, burying a few small wondering heads in the overflow of her
flounces, there was no doubt of her reception in the arch smile that
dimpled her cheek. Dropping a half curtsey to the master, the only
suggestion of her equality with the others, she took her place at one of
the larger desks, and resting her elbow on the lid began to quietly
remove her gloves. It was Cressy McKinstry.
Irritated and disturbed at the girl's unceremonious entrance, the master
for the moment recognized her salutation coldly, and affected to ignore
her elaborate appearance. The situation was embarrassing. He could not
decline to receive her as she was no longer accompanied by her lover,
nor could he plead entire ignorance of her broken engagement; while to
point out the glaring inappropriateness of costume would be a fresh
interference he knew Indian Spring would scarcely tolerate. He could
only accept such explanation as she might choose to give. He rang his
bell as much to avert the directed eyes of the children as to bring the
scene to a climax.
She had removed her gloves and was standing up.
"I reckon I can go on where I left off?" she said lazily, pointing to the

books she had brought with her.
"For the present," said