irls of more vigorous
organization, who were disposed to laughing and play, and required a
strong hand to manage them; then young growing misses of every shade of
Saxon complexion, and here and there one of more Southern hue: blondes,
some of them so translucent-looking that it seemed as if you could see
the souls in their bodies, like bubbles in glass, if souls were objects
of sight; brunettes, some with rose-red colors, and some with that
swarthy hue which often carries with it a heavily-shaded lip, and
which, with pure outlines and outspoken reliefs, gives us some of our
handsomest women,--the women whom ornaments of plain gold adorn more
than any other parures; and again, but only here and there, one with
dark hair and gray or blue eyes, a Celtic type, perhaps, but found in
our native stock occasionally; rarest of all, a light-haired girl with
dark eyes, hazel, brown, or of the color of that mountain-brook spoken
of in this chapter, where it ran through shadowy woodlands. With these
were to be seen at intervals some of maturer years, full-blown flowers
among the opening buds, with that conscious look upon their faces which
so many women wear during the period when they never meet a single man
without having his monosyllable ready for him,--tied as they are, poor
things! on the rock of expectation, each of them an Andromeda waiting
for her Perseus.

"Who is that girl in ringlets,--the fourth in the third row on the
right?" said Master Langdon.

"Charlotte Ann Wood," said Miss Darley; "writes very pretty poems."

"Oh!--And the pink one, three seats from her? Looks bright; anything in
her?"

"Emma Dean,--day-scholar,--Squire Dean's daughter,--nice girl,--second
medal last year."

The master asked these two questions in a careless kind of way, and did
not seem to pay any too much attention to the answers.

"And who and what is that," he said,--"sitting a little apart
there,--that strange, wild-looking girl?"

This time he put the real question he wanted answered;--the other two
were asked at random, as masks for the third.

The lady-teacher's face changed;--one would have said she was frightened
or troubled. She looked at the girl doubtfully, as if she might hear the
master's question and its answer. But the girl did not look up;--she was
winding a gold chain about her wrist, and then uncoiling it, as if in a
kind of reverie.

Miss Darley drew close to the master and placed her hand so as to hide
her lips. "