said Aunt Maria.

But for all that Maria felt herself drawn towards this poor little
offspring of the degenerate branch of the Ramseys. There was
something about the child's delicate, intellectual, fairly noble cast
of countenance which at once aroused her affection and pity. It was
in December, on a bitterly cold day, when Maria had been teaching in
Amity some two months, when this affection and pity ripened into
absolute fondness and protection. The children were out in the bare
school-yard during the afternoon recess, when Maria, sitting huddled
over the stove for warmth, heard such a clamor that she ran to the
window. Out in the desolate yard, a parallelogram of frozen soil
hedged in with a high board fence covered with grotesque, and even
obscene, drawings of pupils who had from time to time reigned in
district number six, was the little Ramsey girl, surrounded by a
crowd of girls who were fairly yelping like little mongrel dogs. The
boys' yard was on the other side of the fence, but in the fence was a
knot-hole wherein was visible a keen boy-eye. One girl after another
was engaged in pulling to the height of her knees Jessy Ramsey's
poor, little, dirty frock, thereby disclosing her thin, naked legs,
absolutely uncovered to the freezing blast. Maria rushed bareheaded
out in the yard and thrust herself through the crowd of little girls.

"Girls, what are you doing?" she asked, sternly.

"Please, teacher, Jessy Ramsey, she 'ain't got nothin' at all on
under her dress," piped one after another, in accusing tones; then
they yelped again.

Tears of pity and rage sprang to Maria's eyes. She caught hold of the
thin little shoulder, which was, beyond doubt, covered by nothing
except her frock, and turned furiously upon the other girls.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!" said she; "great girls like
you making fun of this poor child!"

"She had ought to be ashamed of herself goin' round so," retorted the
biggest girl in school, Alice Sweet, looking boldly at Maria. "She
ain't no better than her ma. My ma says so."

"My ma says I mustn't go with her," said another girl.

"Both of you go straight into the school-house," said Maria, at a
white heat of anger as she impelled poor little Jessy Ramsey out of
the yard.

"I don't care," said Alice Sweet, with quite audible impudence.

The black eye at the knot-hole in the fence which separated the
girls' yard from the boys' was replaced by a blue one. Maria's
att