But she had made the most of herself in her profession, as she had in other directions.  Her motto was to aim high, even if her arrow should light in the mud at last, and she always shot by that rule.  When she decided to be a teacher rather than a clerk in a store, she began to look about for the best opportunities in the direction of her choice.  It should be remarked that the alternative of store or schoolroom came to her only after several unsuccessful seasons in society, in which the moulded form, the wavy hair, and the constant smile had been used to their best possible advantage, but all in vain.  The hook on which her bait was hung was so rigid and cold that no gudgeon, even, ever thought of biting at it; though the angler thought it a clever and tempting bit to bite at.

How apt we all are to be deceived—­by ourselves.

So Elvira resolved to make a school teacher out of herself.

Being somewhat dull intellectually, and detesting severe study, she abjured all paths that would lead her to teach the higher branches of learning, and bent her rather spare and somewhat stale energies to fitting herself for primary work.  This, too, in the face of the fact that she naturally despised children, except sweet little girls in their best clothes, with long curls, freshly made up, and hanging like a golden flood over neck and shoulders; or bright little boys, also well dressed and duly curled, for about a minute, when they came into the parlor where Miss Stone used to sit with her smile.  For these she had a fancy merely, it could not be called an affection.  Miss Stone was not affectionate.

She went to St. Louis and associated herself with the Kindergarten of that far-famed city.

Far be it from this record to intimate that this is not a good thing to do, on occasion.  With this point I have naught to do.  But history is history, and facts must be duly recorded; and the fact is, Miss Stone went to St. Louis, as before stated, and let out the job of being fashioned into a Kindergarten, to certain persons who dwelt in that city, and whose business it was to do just this sort of thing.

Neither can it be here set down what her ultimate success might have been had she confined herself to Kindergarten work proper.  Indeed, it is an open question how any one ever succeeded in this particular way, or, in fact, whether any one ever did do Kindergarten work proper for a week at a time.  It is one of the peculiarities of this kind, that it is never met with in all its purity.  Like the old-fashioned milk-sickness, you can never come to the place where it really exists.  Any one can tell you just where you will find it, but when you pursue it, and come to the place, like the end of the rainbow, it evades you and goes beyond.

But this is getting on slowly.  Miss Stone got on slowly, too.

This was the woman to whom “Dodd” committed himself, in the words of the last chapter.  The lady turned towards the boy and brought the full force of her smile to bear upon his luckless head.