ould not help laughing, as
he thought how neatly he had knocked the young butcher off his pins.

"A little science is a dangerous thing, 'as well as a little
'learning,'" he said to himself; "only it's dangerous to the fellow you'
try it on." And he cut him a good stick, and began climbing the side of
The Mountain to get a look at that famous Rattlesnake Ledge.

CHAPTER VI. THE SUNBEAM AND THE SHADOW.

The virtue of the world is not mainly in its leaders. In the midst of
the multitude which follows there is often something better than in the
one that goes before. Old generals wanted to take Toulon, but one of
their young colonels showed them how. The junior counsel has been known
not unfrequently to make a better argument than his senior fellow,--if,
indeed, he did not make both their arguments. Good ministers will tell
you they have parishioners who beat them in the practice of the virtues.
A great establishment, got up on commercial principles, like the
Apollinean Institute, might yet be well carried on, if it happened to
get good teachers. And when Master Langdon came to see its management,
he recognized that there must be fidelity and intelligence somewhere
among the instructors. It was only necessary to look for a moment at
the fair, open forehead, the still, tranquil eye of gentle, habitual
authority, the sweet gravity that lay upon the lips, to hear the clear
answers to the pupils' questions, to notice how every request had the
force without the form of a command, and the young man could not doubt
that the good genius of the school stood before him in the person of
Helen barley.

It was the old story. A poor country-clergyman dies, and leaves a widow
and a daughter. In Old England the daughter would have eaten the bitter
bread of a governess in some rich family. In New England she must keep
a school. So, rising from one sphere to another, she at length finds
herself the prima donna in the department of instruction in Mr. Silas
Peckham's educational establishment.

What a miserable thing it is to be poor. She was dependent, frail,
sensitive, conscientious. She was in the power of a hard, grasping,
thin-blooded, tough-fibred, trading educator, who neither knew nor cared
for a tender woman's sensibilities, but who paid her and meant to have
his money's worth out of her brains, and as much more than his
money's worth as he could get. She was consequently, in plain English,
overworked, and an overworked wom