She would have enjoyed more of them than fell to her share, but
yet was willing to agree with her grandmother that more might not be
good for her, and was on the whole content without them.

Very rarely does there come in a lifetime a triumph so unmixed as the
boy enjoys who is not only declared first, but shows himself before his
whole world to be first in the village school. It does not matter
whether he distinguishes himself by the spelling of many-syllabled
words, and the repeating of rules and the multiplication table, or by
his proficiency in higher branches, which are mysteries to the greater
part of the admiring audience. It is all the same a triumph, pure,
unmixed, satisfying. At least it possesses all these qualities in a
higher degree than any future triumph can possibly possess them.

Such a triumph was Davie's. It was Katie's too in a way, but it was
Davie's chiefly on this occasion, because it was his for the first time.
But that did not spoil Katie's pleasure at all. Quite the contrary.
Davie's triumph was hers, and she almost forgot to answer when her own
name was called to receive her merited share of the honours, so full was
she of the thought of what her grandfather would say when she should
tell him about Davie.

And Katie had a little triumph all her own. It troubled her for a
while, and did not come to anything after all, but still it was a
triumph, and acknowledged to be such by all Gershom. She was chosen out
of all the girls who had been Mr Burnet's pupils during the winter, to
teach the village school. The village school stood next to the
High-School, and for Katie Fleming, not yet sixteen, to be chosen a
teacher, was a feather in her cap indeed. Her grandfather was greatly
pleased and so was Miss Elizabeth. Mrs Fleming, coveting for her good
and clever Katie advantages which in their circumstances she could only
hope to enjoy through her own exertions, would have been willing to
spare her from home, and Miss Elizabeth, who had come to love the girl
dearly, knew that she could often have her with her, should she be in
the village during the summer. But Katie never kept the village school,
nor any school. Her grandfather did not like the idea of it, nor did
Davie. Miss Betsey Holt set her face against it from the very first,
though why she should interest herself especially in the matter did not
clearly appear. The chances were that it would be but a poor school
that a child lik