nduct indicated. When it was certainly known that
Mary Morgan carried into the recitation-room notes of the lesson,
written upon bits of paper, and tucked up her sleeve, or hidden in the
folds of her dress, popular indignation arose to a bubbling boil. A
tale-bearer would have been drummed out of school, and not a lisp of the
shameful truth was carried to the teacher, the second Miss Nunham, who
was near-sighted and unsuspicious. The geography lesson was the most
exciting event of the day,--a prize-ring, in which the two at the head
of the class were chief actors. When a question reached Mary Morgan, the
class held its breath for a time. When she answered with glib accuracy,
the breath exhaled in chagrin audible to all but the teacher. Out of
class I was noticed, cheered, and commended, and exhorted to hold on in
the course of truth and uprightness--encouragement corresponding to the
rubbing down and bracing bestowed by his guardians upon the pugilist.
And still the geography questions went around, and Mary Morgan was head
and I next to head.

At last, on the fifteenth of December, came the tug of war in the shape
of a review of the exercises of the last month, and Mary Morgan was
armed for the fray by half a dozen long slips of paper covered with
characters in very black ink. Presuming upon the teacher's short-sighted
eyes, and nerved by a sense of the gravity of the situation, she boldly
laid the papers upon the bench between her and myself, and consulted
them from time to time, with coolness that would have been heroic had it
not been impudent. The recitation was half over, when the girl who sat
next below me "made a long arm" behind my back, and abstracted one of
the abhorrent slips without the knowledge of the owner. She perceived
the loss as the questions were again nearing her, gave one frightened
glance at the floor on all sides of her, colored violently; made a
desperate rally of memory and courage when the question reached her,
answered so wildly that the teacher gave her a second trial, and, in
pity for her distress, still a third.

Such a simple question as it was! I can never forget it. "What large
island lies south of Hindostan?"

Nor can I forget the pale dismay of the face turned to me as the teacher
said, reluctantly,--"Next."

I had never liked the girl; latterly, I had despised her and regarded
her as my enemy. I did not analyze the revulsion of feeling that made me
hesitate while one could have c