them gals was here. I hate 'em and they hates me. That's why. You keep
school, don't you? I want to be teached!"

If to the shabbiness of her apparel and uncomeliness of her tangled hair
and dirty face she had added the humility of tears, the master would
have extended to her the usual moiety of pity, and nothing more. But
with the natural, though illogical, instincts of his species, her
boldness awakened in him something of that respect which all original
natures pay unconsciously to one another in any grade. And he gazed at
her the more fixedly as she went on still rapidly, her hand on that door
latch and her eyes on his:

"My name's Mliss--Mliss Smith! You can bet your life on that. My
father's Old Smith--Old Bummer Smith--that's what's the matter with him.
Mliss Smith--and I'm coming to school!"

"Well?" said the master.

Accustomed to be thwarted and opposed, often wantonly and cruelly, for
no other purpose than to excite the violent impulses of her nature, the
master's phlegm evidently took her by surprise. She stopped; she began
to twist a lock of her hair between her fingers; and the rigid line
of upper lip, drawn over the wicked little teeth, relaxed and quivered
slightly. Then her eyes dropped, and something like a blush struggled up
to her cheek and tried to assert itself through the splashes of redder
soil, and the sunburn of years. Suddenly she threw herself forward,
calling on God to strike her dead, and fell quite weak and helpless,
with her face on the master's desk, crying and sobbing as if her heart
would break.