so sailed from the room.

Instantly the girls, some twenty in number, flocked about Lulu with
eager, excited exclamations and questions.

"Did he really strike you, Lu?"

"How did you take it?"

"I hope you returned the blow? I certainly shall if ever he dares to lift
his hand to me." This from a haughty-looking brunette of fourteen or
fifteen.

"Brings it down, you mean, with a snap of his pointer on your fingers,"
laughed a merry little girl with golden hair and big blue eyes.

Neither Rosie nor Evelyn had spoken as yet, though the one was standing,
the other sitting, close at Lulu's side.

Lulu's left hand lay in her lap, her handkerchief wrapped loosely about
it. Eva gently removed the handkerchief, and tears sprang to her eyes at
sight of the wounded fingers.

"Oh, Lu!" she cried in accents of love and pity, "how he has hurt you!"

A shower of exclamations followed from the others. "Hasn't he? the vile
wretch!"

"Cruel monster! worst of savages! He ought to be flogged within an inch
of his life!"

"He ought to be shot down like a dog!"

"He ought to be hung!"

"It's a very great shame," said Rosie, putting her arm affectionately
round Lulu's neck. "I hope grandpa will have him arrested and sent to
prison."

"But oh, Lu," cried Nettie Vance, the one who had brought the signor's
message, "do tell me, didn't you strike him back? He looked as if he had
had a pretty heavy blow on the side of his face."

"So he had; as hard a one as I could give with the music-book in both
hands," replied Lulu, smiling grimly at the recollection.

Her statement was received with peals of laughter, clapping of hands and
cries of,

"Good for you, Miss Raymond!"

"Oh, but I'm glad he got his deserts for once!"

"I think he'll be apt to keep his hands--or rather his pointer--off you
in the future."

"Off other people too," added a timid little girl who had felt its sting
more than once. "I was rejoiced to hear the professor say he didn't allow
such punishment for girls. I'll let the signor know, and that I'll inform
on him if ever he touches me with his pointer again."

"So should I," said Nettie; "I wouldn't put up with it. But he has never
hurt you as he has Lulu. See! every one of her fingers is blistered!"

"Yes; it must have hurt terribly. I don't wonder she struck him back."

"Indeed, it wasn't the pain I cared so much for," returned Lulu, scorning
the implication; "it was the insult."

"Young ladies," s