it was too bad she had got so wet. Another was, that she really supposed
it was her business to know when school-time came, no matter where she was
or what she was doing. Another, that she had made her mother a great deal
of trouble. A fourth was, that she was sorry to be so late at school--it
always made Miss Melville look so; and then a bad mark was not, on the
whole, a desirable thing. Still a fifth was, that she would never do such
a thing again as long as she lived--_never_. The sixth lay in a valiant
determination to behave herself the rest of this particular day. She would
study hard. She would get to the head of the class. She wouldn't put a
single pin in the girls' chairs, nor tickle anybody, nor make up funny
faces, nor whisper, nor make one of the girls laugh, not one, not even
that silly Delia Guest, who laughed at nothing,--why, you couldn't so much
as make a doll out of your handkerchief and gloves, and hang it on your
pen-handle, but what she had to go into a spasm over it.

No, she wouldn't do a single funny thing all day. She would just sit still
and look sober and sorry, and not trouble Miss Melville in the least. Her
mind was quite made up.

Just as she had arrived at this conclusion she came to the school-house
door. Gypsy and a number of other girls, both her own age and younger, who
either were not prepared to enter the high school, or whose parents
preferred the select school system, composed Miss Melville's charge. They
were most of them pleasant girls, and Miss Melville was an unusually
successful teacher, and as dearly loved as a judicious teacher can be. The
school-house was a bit of a brown building tucked away under some
apple-trees on a quiet by-road. It had been built for a district school,
but had fallen into disuse years ago, and Miss Melville had taken
possession of it.