The master lifted her gently and waited for the paroxysm to pass. When,
with face still averted, she was repeating between her sobs the MEA
CULPA of childish penitence--that "she'd be good, she didn't mean to,"
etc., it came to him to ask her why she had left Sabbath school.

Why had she left the Sabbath school?--why? Oh, yes. What did he
(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