"I don't see what possessed me!" she said, vehemently. "Why don't you turn
me out of school?"

"I did not think you could willingly try to make me trouble," continued
Miss Melville, without noticing the last remark.

The two great drops rolled slowly down Gypsy's cheeks, and into her mouth.
She swallowed them with a gulp, and brushed her hand, angrily, across her
eyes. Gypsy very seldom cried, but I fancy she came pretty near it on that
occasion.

"Miss Melville," she said, with an earnestness that was comical, in spite
of itself; "I wish you'd please to scold me. I should feel a great deal
better."

"Scoldings won't do you much good," said Miss Melville, with a sad smile;
"you must cure your own faults, Gypsy. Nobody else can do it for you."

Gypsy turned around in a little passion of despair.

"Miss Melville, _I can't_! It isn't in me--you don't know! Here this
very morning I got late to school, tipping Winnie over in a raft--drenched
through both of us, and mother, so patient and sweet with the dry
stockings she'd just mended, and wasn't I sorry? Didn't I think about it
all the way to school--the whole way, Miss Melville? And didn't I make up
my mind I'd be as good as a kitten all day, and sit still like Agnes
Gaylord, and not tickle the girls, nor make you any trouble, nor anything?
Then what should I do but come into the entry and see those things, and it
all came like a flash how funny it would be'n I'd talk up high like Mrs.