e
(McSnagley) want to tell her she was wicked for? What did he tell her
that God hated her for? If God hated her, what did she want to go to
Sabbath school for? SHE didn't want to be "beholden" to anybody who
hated her.

Had she told McSnagley this?

Yes, she had.

The master laughed. It was a hearty laugh, and echoed so oddly in the
little schoolhouse, and seemed so inconsistent and discordant with the
sighing of the pines without, that he shortly corrected himself with
a sigh. The sigh was quite as sincere in its way, however, and after a
moment of serious silence he asked about her father.

Her father? What father? Whose father? What had he ever done for her?
Why did the girls hate her? Come now! what made the folks say, "Old
Bummer Smith's Mliss!" when she passed? Yes; oh yes. She wished he was
dead--she was dead--everybody was dead; and her sobs broke forth anew.

The master then, leaning over her, told her as well as he could what you
or I might have said after hearing such unnatural theories from childish
lips; only bearing in mind perhaps better than you or I the unnatural
facts of her ragged dress, her bleeding feet, and the omnipresent shadow
of her drunken father. Then, raising her to her feet, he wrapped his
shawl around her, and, bidding her come early in the morning, he walked
with her down the road. There he bade her "good night." The moon shone
brightly on the narrow path before them. He stood and watched the bent
little figure as it staggered down the road, and waited until it had
passed the little graveyard and reached the curve of the hill, where it
turned and stood for a moment, a mere atom of suffering outlined against
the far-off patient stars. Then he went back to his work. But the lines
of the copybook thereafter faded into long parallels of never-ending
road, over which childish figures seemed to pass sobbing and crying into
the night. Then, the little schoolhouse seeming lonelier than before, he
shut the door and went home.

The next morning Mliss came to school. Her face had been washed, and her
coarse black hair bore evidence of recent struggles with the comb,
in which both had evidently suffered. The old defiant look shone
occasionally in her eyes, but her manner was tamer and more subdued.
Then began a series of little trials and self-sacrifices, in which
master and pupil bore an equal part, and which increased the confidence
and sympathy between them. Although obedient under the mas