Alas, alas! to her there was no beauty in him.  This simple tender story did not move her as the commonplace account of a common sickness and common recovery given in a village paper would have done.  The very most that she thought of it was this:  “That Miss Rider has a good deal of dramatic power.  How well she tells the story!  But dear me! how stupid it must be.  What is the use of taking so much trouble for these little midgets?  They don’t understand the story, and of what use would it be to them if they did?  Something that happened to somebody hundreds of years ago.”

But now her attention was arrested by the sound of a very loud whisper just behind her, given in a childish voice.  “Miss Rider, Miss Rider,” the child was saying, and emphasizing her whisper by a pull at a lady’s dress.  Eurie turned quickly; the dress belonged to a young, fair girl, with fresh glowing face and large bright eyes, that shone now with feeling as she listened eagerly to this story, and to the comments of the children concerning it.  Then she in turn whispered to the lady nearest her:  “Is it Miss Rider who is teaching?” “No, it is Mrs. Clark, of Newark.  That is Miss Rider leaning against a post.”

Then Eurie looked back to her.  “She is no older than I,” she murmured; “indeed not so old, I should think.  Her hair must be exactly the color of mine, and we are about the same height.  I wonder if we do look in the least alike?  What do I care!” Yet still she looked; the bright face fascinated her.  The little child had won the lady’s attention; and the lips and eyes, and indeed the whole face, were vivid with animation as she bent low and answered some troubled question, appealing to the diagram on the board, and making clear her answer by rapid gestures with her fingers.  The lady beside Eurie volunteered some more information.

“Miss Rider was to have taught this class, I heard.  I wonder why she didn’t?”

“I don’t know,” Eurie answered, briefly.  Then she looked back at her again.  “She is jealous,” she said to herself.  “She was to have taught this class this morning, and by some blundering she was left out, and she is disgusted.  She will say that such teaching as this amounts to nothing; she could have done it five times as well; or, if she doesn’t say that last, she will think it and act it.  I have no doubt these rival teachers cordially hate each other, like politicians.”

Nevertheless that fresh young face, with its glow of feeling, fascinated her.  She kept looking at her; she gave no more attention to the lesson.  What was it, after all, but an old story that had nothing to do with her; the fact that it was taken from the Bible was proof enough of that.  But she watched Miss Rider.  The session closed and that lady pressed forward to assist in giving out papers.  The crowd pushed the willing Eurie nearer to her, so near that she could catch the sentence that she was eagerly saying to the lady near her.