the
shame-faced, half-sullen, and half-defiant behavior of the Burghes.
These boys were the only enemies Ishmael possessed in the school; his
sweetness of spirit had, on the contrary, made him many friends. He was
ever ready to do any kindness to anyone; to give up his own pleasure for
the convenience of others; to help forward a backward pupil, or to
enlighten a dull one. This goodness gained him grateful partisans among
the boys; but he had, also, disinterested ones among the girls.

Claudia and Beatrice were his self-constituted little lady-patronesses.

The Burghes did not dare to sneer at Ishmael's humble position in their
presence. For, upon the very first occasion that Alfred had ventured a
sarcasm at the expense of Ishmael in her hearing, Claudia had so shamed
him for insulting a youth to whose bravery he was indebted for his life,
that even Master Alfred had had the grace to blush, and ever afterward
had avoided exposing himself to a similar scorching.

In this little world of the schoolroom there was a little unconscious
drama beginning to be performed.

I said that Claudia and Beatrice had constituted themselves the little
lady-patronesses of the poor boy. But there was a difference in their
manner towards their protege.

The dark-eyed, dark-haired, imperious young heiress patronized him in a
right royal manner, trotting him out, as it were, for the inspection of
her friends, and calling their attention to his merits--so surprising in
a boy of his station; very much, I say, as she would have exhibited the
accomplishments of her dog, Fido, so wonderful in a brute! very much,
ah! as duchesses patronize promising young poets.

This was at times so humiliating to Ishmael that his self-respect must
have suffered terribly, fatally, but for Beatrice.

The fair-haired, blue-eyed, and gentle Bee had a much finer, more
delicate, sensitive, and susceptible nature than her cousin; she
understood Ishmael better, and sympathized with him more than Claudia
could. She loved and respected him as an elder brother, and indeed more
than she did her elder brothers; for he was much superior to both in
physical, moral, and intellectual beauty. Bee felt all this so deeply
that she honored in Ishmael her ideal of what a boy ought to be, and
what she wished her brothers to become.

In a word, the child-woman had already set up an idol in her heart, an
idol never, never, in all the changes and chances of this world, to be
thr