ard detected at the
moment of wrongdoing is not an object of delight.

"Minnie Smellie, if ever--I--catch--you--singing--that--to the Simpsons
again--do you know what I'll do?" asked Rebecca in a tone of
concentrated rage.

"I don't know and I don't care," said Minnie jauntily, though her looks
belied her.

"I'll take that piece of coral away from you, and I THINK I shall slap
you besides!"

"You wouldn't darst," retorted Minnie. "If you do, I'll tell my mother
and the teacher, so there!"

"I don't care if you tell your mother, my mother, and all your
relations, and the president," said Rebecca, gaining courage as the
noble words fell from her lips. "I don't care if you tell the town, the
whole of York county, the state of Maine and--and the nation!" she
finished grandiloquently. "Now you run home and remember what I say. If
you do it again, and especially if you say 'Jail Birds,' if I think
it's right and my duty, I shall punish you somehow."

The next morning at recess Rebecca observed Minnie telling the tale
with variations to Huldah Meserve. "She THREATENED me," whispered
Minnie, "but I never believe a word she says."

The latter remark was spoken with the direct intention of being
overheard, for Minnie had spasms of bravery, when well surrounded by
the machinery of law and order.

As Rebecca went back to her seat she asked Miss Dearborn if she might
pass a note to Minnie Smellie and received permission. This was the
note:--

Of all the girls that are so mean There's none like Minnie
Smellie. I'll take away the gift I gave And pound her into
jelly.

_P. S. Now do you believe me?_

R. Randall.

The effect of this piece of doggerel was entirely convincing, and for
days afterwards whenever Minnie met the Simpsons even a mile from the
brick house she shuddered and held her peace.

VIII

COLOR OF ROSE

On the very next Friday after this "dreadfullest fight that ever was
seen," as Bunyan says in Pilgrim's Progress, there were great doings in
the little schoolhouse on the hill. Friday afternoon was always the
time chosen for dialogues, songs, and recitations, but it cannot be
stated that it was a gala day in any true sense of the word. Most of
the children hated "speaking pieces;" hated the burden of learning
them, dreaded the danger of breaking down in them. Miss Dearborn
commonly went home with a headache, and never left her bed during the
rest of the afternoon or evening; a