ell. "Why were you
looking around so?" Ellen said nothing. The little girl behind had
her head bent over her book so low that the sulky curves of her
mouth did not show. The teacher turned to her--"Abby Atkins," said
she, "what were you doing?"

Abby Atkins did not raise her studious head. She did not seem to
hear.

"Abby Atkins," said the teacher, sharply, "answer me. What were you
doing?" Then the little girl answered, with a sulky note, half
growl, half whimper, like some helpless but indomitable little
trapped animal, "Nothin'."

"Ellen," said the teacher, and her voice changed indescribably.
"What was she doing?" Ellen did not answer. She looked up in the
teacher's face, then cast down her eyes and sat there, her little
hands folded in tightly clinched fists in her lap, her mouth a pink
line of resistance. "Ellen," repeated the teacher, and she tried to
make her voice sharp, but in spite of herself it was caressing. Her
heart had gone out to the child the moment she had seen her enter
the school-room. She was as helpless before her as before a lover.
She was wild to catch her up and caress her instead of pestering her
with questions. "Ellen, you must answer me," she said, but Ellen sat
still.

Half the scholars were on their feet, reaching and craning their
necks. The teacher turned on them, and there was no lack of
sharpness in her tone. "Sit down this moment, every one of you," she
called. "Abby Atkins, if there is any more disturbance, I shall know
what is at the root of the matter. If I see you turning around
again, Ellen, I shall insist upon knowing why." Then the teacher
placed a caressing hand upon Ellen's yellow head, and passed down
the aisle to her desk.

Ellen had no more trouble during the session. Abby Atkins was
commendably quiet and studious, and when called out to recitation
made the best one in her class. She was really brilliant in a
defiant, reluctant fashion. However, though she did not again
disturb Ellen's curls, she glowered at her with furtive but
unrelaxed hostility over her book. Especially a blue ribbon which
confined Ellen's curls in a beautiful bow fired her eyes of
animosity. She looked hard at it, then she pulled her black braid
over her shoulder and felt of the hard shoe-string knot, and frowned
with an ugly frown of envy and bitterest injury, and asked herself
the world-wide and world-old question as to the why of inequality,
and, though it was based on such trivialitie