ispiece of a romantic story some day to be read. She looked
compelled to look, but consenting and unashamed; at home in submission;
just the look that wins observant boys, shrewd as dogs to read by signs,
if they are interested in the persons. They read Browny's meaning: that
Matey had only to come and snatch her; he was her master, and she was a
brave girl, ready to go all over the world with him; had taken to him
as he to her, shot for shot. Her taking to the pick of the school was a
capital proof that she was of the right sort. To be sure, she could not
much help herself.

Some of the boys regretted her not being fair. But, as they felt, and
sought to explain, in the manner of the wag of a tail, with elbows and
eyebrows to one another's understanding, fair girls could never have let
fly such look; fair girls are softer, woollier, and when they mean to
look serious, overdo it by craping solemn; or they pinafore a jigging
eagerness, or hoist propriety on a chubby flaxen grin; or else they
dart an eye, or they mince and prim and pout, and are sigh-away and
dying-ducky, given to girls' tricks. Browny, after all, was the girl for
Matey.

She won a victory right away and out of hand, on behalf of her
cloud-and-moon sisters, as against the sunny-meadowy; for slanting
intermediates are not espied of boys in anything: conquered by Browny;
they went over to her colour, equal to arguing, that Venus at her
mightiest must have been dark, or she would not have stood a comparison
with the forest Goddess of the Crescent, swanning it through a lake--on
the leap for run of the chase--watching the dart, with her humming
bow at breast. The fair are simple sugary thing's, prone to fat,
like broad-sops in milk; but the others are milky nuts, good to bite,
Lacedaemonian virgins, hard to beat, putting us on our mettle; and they
are for heroes, and they can be brave. So these boys felt, conquered
by Browny. A sneaking native taste for the forsaken side, known to
renegades, hauled at them if her image waned during the week; and it
waned a little, but Sunday restored and stamped it.

By a sudden turn the whole upper-school had fallen to thinking of girls,
and the meeting on the Sunday was a prospect. One of the day-boarders
had a sister in the seminary of Miss Vincent. He was plied to obtain
information concerning Browny's name and her parents. He had it pat to
hand in answer. No parents came to see her; an aunt came now and then.
Her aunt'