looked at the
master, and the master nodded. Then Clytie spoke softly:

"Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and it obeyed him!" There
was a low hum of applause in the schoolroom, a triumphant expression on
McSnagley's face, a grave shadow on the master's, and a comical look of
disappointment reflected from the windows. Mliss skimmed rapidly over
her astronomy, and then shut the book with a loud snap. A groan burst
from McSnagley, an expression of astonishment from the schoolroom, a
yell from the windows, as Mliss brought her red fist down on the desk,
with the emphatic declaration:

"It's a damn lie. I don't believe it!"

CHAPTER IV

The long wet season had drawn near its close. Signs of spring were
visible in the swelling buds and rushing torrents. The pine forests
exhaled the fresher spicery. The azaleas were already budding, the
ceanothus getting ready its lilac livery for spring. On the green upland
which climbed Red Mountain at its southern aspect the long spike of the
monkshood shot up from its broad-leaved stool, and once more shook
its dark-blue bells. Again the billow above Smith's grave was soft and
green, its crest just tossed with the foam of daisies and buttercups.
The little graveyard had gathered a few new dwellers in the past year,
and the mounds were placed two by two by the little paling until they
reached Smith's grave, and there there was but one. General superstition
had shunned it, and the plot beside Smith was vacant.

There had been several placards posted about the town, intimating that,
at a certain period, a celebrated dramatic company would perform, for
a few days, a series of "side-splitting" and "screaming farces"; that,
alternating pleasantly with this, there would be some melodrama and a
grand divertisement which would include singing, dancing, etc. These
announcements occasioned a great fluttering among the little folk,
and were the theme of much excitement and great speculation among the
master's scholars. The master had promised Mliss, to whom this sort of
thing was sacred and rare, that she should go, and on that momentous
evening the master and Mliss "assisted."

The performance was the prevalent style of heavy mediocrity; the
melodrama was not bad enough to laugh at nor good enough to excite.
But the master, turning wearily to the child, was astonished and felt
something like self-accusation in noticing the peculiar effect upon her
excitable nature. The red blood f