at a time from Ellen's golden curls, and
tweaking it out.

Ellen looked at her with a singular expression compounded of
bewilderment, of injury, of resentment, of alarm, and of a readiness
to accept it all as a somewhat peculiar advance towards
good-fellowship and a merry understanding. But the expression on
that dark, somewhat grimy little face, looking out at her from a
jungle of coarse, black locks, was fairly impish, almost malicious.
There was not merriment in it so much as jibing; instead of that
soft regard and worshipful admiration which Ellen was accustomed to
find in new eyes, there was resentful envy.

Then Ellen shrank, and bristled with defiance at the same time, for
she had the spirit of both the Brewsters and the Louds in her, in
spite of her delicacy of organization. She was a fine instrument,
capable of chords of tragedy as well as angelic strains. She saw
that the little girl who was treating her so was dressed very
poorly, that her dress was not only shabby, but actually dirty; that
she, as well as the other girl whom she noticed, had her braid tied
with an old shoe-string, and that a curious smell of leather
pervaded her. Ellen continued to regard the little girl, then
suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder, and the teacher, Miss
Rebecca Mitchell, was looking down at her. "What is the trouble?"
asked Miss Mitchell. That look of half-wondering admiration to which
Ellen was accustomed was in the teacher's eyes, and Ellen again
thought her beautiful.

One of the first, though a scarcely acknowledged principle of
beauty, is that of reflection of the fairness of the observer. Ellen
being as innocently self-seeking for love and admiration as any
young thing for its natural sustenance, was quick to recognize it,
though she did not understand that what she saw was herself in the
teacher's eyes, and not the teacher. She gazed up in that roseate
face with the wide mouth set in an inverted bow of smile, curtained,
as it were, with smoothly crinkled auburn hair clearly outlined
against the cheeks, at the palpitating curve of shiny black-silk
bosom, adorned with a festoon of heavy gold watch-chain, and thought
that here was love, and beauty, and richness, and elegance, and
great wisdom, calling for reverence but no fear. She answered not
one word to the teacher's question, but continued to gaze at her
with that look of wide-eyed and contemplative regard.

"What is the trouble, Ellen?" repeated Miss Mitch