adily to maintain good order in the school. When she was fairly
broken in she found the work rather to her liking, and derived much
pleasure from such success as she achieved as a teacher.

It was natural that she should be more attracted to some of her pupils
than to others. Perhaps her favorite--or rather, the one she liked
best, for she was too fair and just for conscious favoritism--was Sophy
Tucker. Just the ground for the teacher's liking for Sophy might not at
first be apparent. The girl was far from the whitest of Miss Myrover's
pupils; in fact, she was one of the darker ones. She was not the
brightest in intellect, though she always tried to learn her lessons.
She was not the best dressed, for her mother was a poor widow, who went
out washing and scrubbing for a living. Perhaps the real tie between
them was Sophy's intense devotion to the teacher. It had manifested
itself almost from the first day of the school, in the rapt look of
admiration Miss Myrover always saw on the little black face turned
toward her. In it there was nothing of envy, nothing of regret; nothing
but worship for the beautiful white lady--she was not especially
handsome, but to Sophy her beauty was almost divine--who had come to
teach her. If Miss Myrover dropped a book, Sophy was the first to spring
and pick it up; if she wished a chair moved, Sophy seemed to anticipate
her wish; and so of all the numberless little services that can be
rendered in a school-room.

Miss Myrover was fond of flowers, and liked to have them about her. The
children soon learned of this taste of hers, and kept the vases on her
desk filled with blossoms during their season. Sophy was perhaps the
most active in providing them. If she could not get garden flowers, she
would make excursions to the woods in the early morning, and bring
in great dew-laden bunches of bay, or jasmine, or some other fragrant
forest flower which she knew the teacher loved.

"When I die, Sophy," Miss Myrover said to the child one day, "I want
to be covered with roses. And when they bury me, I'm sure I shall rest
better if my grave is banked with flowers, and roses are planted at my
head and at my feet."

Miss Myrover was at first amused at Sophy's devotion; but when she grew
more accustomed to it, she found it rather to her liking. It had a sort
of flavor of the old regime, and she felt, when she bestowed her kindly
notice upon her little black attendant, some of the feudal condescension