choolmistress, I'd ha' punched his head!"

Miss Burge pressed her brother softly back into a chair, and patted his
face, and smoothed his hair, and kissed him first on one cheek and then
upon the other.

"You're tired, Bill dear," she said, "and didn't get your nap after
dinner. Where's your handkerchief? Here, let me do it dear;" and
taking her brother's flaming handkerchief from his pocket, she softly
opened it over his head and face as if she were about to perform a
conjuring trick and bring out bowls of gold fish or something of the
kind from beneath, but she did not: she merely left it on his head and
went away on tiptoe, saying to herself:

"Poor Bill! he has got it again, and badly, too."

CHAPTER EIGHT.

MR CHUTE'S VISIT.

It was a busy morning with Hazel Thorne as she took her place in the
large schoolroom, feeling that her responsibilities had now commenced in
earnest. For there were no ladies to take classes now, the assistance
coming from a pupil-teacher and four or five girls as monitors, against
one and all of whom Feelier Potts entertained a deadly hatred, for the
simple reason that she had been passed over, and they had all been
chosen in her stead.

The discipline of the school had been fairly maintained, but Hazel was
not long in finding out that there were plenty of young revolutionary
spirits waiting their opportunity to test the strength of the new
mistress, nor in seeing that Miss Feelier Potts would be one of the
leaders in any small insurrectionary movement that might take place.

There was plenty to do that first morning--to feel the way, as it were;
to find out what had been going on; how it was done; what the girls
knew, and the hundred other little difficulties that a strange mistress
would have to deal with on taking possession of a new post.

Monday morning too, and there were the school pence to be paid--hot,
moist, sticky pennies, that had been carried generally in hot, moist,
sticky hands. These had to be received and noted, and the excuses
listened to as well.

"Mother hadn't got no change's morning, teacher"--"Pay next week,
teacher"--"Mother says, teacher, as there's four on us, she oughtn't to
pay more'n thruppens"--"Mother 'll call and pay when she comes by."
Then there was Sarah Ann Simms' case. Sarah Ann had not brought her
penny, and the book showed that she had not brought it the week before,
nor the month before; in fact, it seemed as if Sarah Ann was in de