“Let me kill him,” she said, in a low voice.

“You, Miss Buchanan?”

“Yes.”

“It’s easy enough, but one mustn’t—­er—­miss.”

“I shan’t miss.”

She took the willow stick from my brother’s hand.  Every movement of his she reproduced exactly, even to the setting of her heel upon the serpent’s head.  Then she smiled at us apologetically.

“I hated to do it.  I was scared to death, but I wanted to conquer that cowardly Belle.  It’s just as you say, they’re killed mighty easy.  If we could kill the Old Serpent as easy——­” she sighed, not finishing the sentence.

Ajax, who has a trick of saying what others think, blurted out—­

“What do you mean by conquering—­Belle?”

We sat down.

“My name is Alethea-Belle, a double name.  Father wanted to call me Alethea; but mother fancied Belle.  Father, you know, was a Massachusetts minister; mother came from way down south.  She died when I was a child.  She—­she was not very strong, poor mother, but father,” she spoke proudly, “father was the best man that ever lived.”

All her self-consciousness had vanished.  Somehow we felt that the daughter of the New England parson was speaking, not the child of the invertebrate Southerner.

“I had to take to selling books,” she continued, speaking more to herself than to us, “because of Belle.  That miserable girl got into debt.  Father left her a little money.  Belle squandered it sinfully on clothes and pleasure.  She’d a rose silk dress——­”

“A rose silk dress?” repeated Ajax.

“It was just too lovely—­that dress,” said the little schoolmarm, reflectively.

“Even Alethea could not resist it,” said I.

She blushed, and her shyness, her awkwardness, returned.

“Alethea had to pay for it,” she replied primly.  “I ask your pardon for speaking so foolishly and improperly of—­myself.”

After this, behind her back, Ajax and I invariably called her Alethea-
Belle.

* * * * *

School began at nine sharp the next morning.  We expected a large attendance, and were not disappointed.  Some of the boys grinned broadly when Alethea-Belle appeared carrying books and maps.  She looked absurdly small, very nervous, and painfully frail.  The fathers present exchanged significant glances; the mothers sniffed.  Alethea-Belle entered the names of her scholars in a neat ledger, and shook hands with each.  Then she made a short speech.

“Friends,” she said, “I’m glad to make your acquaintance.  I shall expect my big boys and girls to set an example to the little ones by being punctual, clean, and obedient.  We will now begin our exercises with prayer and a hymn.  After that the parents will please retire.”

That evening Alethea-Belle went early to bed with a raging headache.  Next morning she appeared whiter than ever, but her eyelids were red.  However, she seemed self-possessed and even cheerful.  Riding together across the range, Ajax said to me:  “Alethea-Belle is scared out of her life.”