er better, and then you'll see it shine through her
face. There's a good look about her that is better than beauty."

After she had once begun, Flaxie would not have missed a day at school
for anything. She had never learned so fast before, for she had never
had a teacher she loved so well.

"Oh, auntie," said she one day, "I've seen her soul shine! It shines
when she smiles."

Milly and Flaxie were the best scholars, so Miss Pike told Aunt
Charlotte. But they did not study all the time. Oh, no. Miss Pike
understood children, and didn't _expect_ them to study all the time. She
often drew pictures on the blackboard for them to copy on the slate, and
if they wanted to bring their dinners and play at noon she was perfectly
willing; only they were not to scream too loud, or go near the desks,
for fear of spilling the ink. She noticed that the little girls were
more noisy after Flaxie Frizzle came; but this was not strange, for
Flaxie knew a great many games that the Hilltop children had never heard
of before.

"Lesson? Oh, yes. I've got that ole thing," she would say sometimes, as
she rushed for her hat long before school-time.

"Spell _ocean_, then," said studious Milly, following her with the
spelling-book in her hand.

"_O-s-h-u-n._ There! I'm in a hurry. I want to get to school to play
'Bloody Murder.'"

That sounded dreadful, but I dare say was not as bad as it seemed. And
one day after Flaxie had taught the little folks all the games she could
possibly remember, she thought of a new thing to do.

"See there, Milly," said she, pointing to a high pile of boards behind
the schoolhouse, under one of the windows. "A man has gone and put those
down there, and now let's make a house of 'em, and live in it!"

Milly hugged Flaxie, it was such a bright idea. Make a house? Of course
they would! They had made cupboards out of shingles and stones, and put
clay dishes on the shelves; they had dug ovens all along the bank like
swallows' nests; but a real live house, what could be so charming as
that?

But when you came to think of it, it wasn't what you might call easy
work, for the boards were very heavy; and with all their tugging the
little girls could only drag them a little way across the ground.

"Well, Johnny will help," said Milly, puffing for breath. "And perhaps
Freddy will too."

She knew they couldn't coax Freddy quite as well as they could Johnny.
The little girls never once thought of asking who owned th