By this time it was half-past eight, and together with Lizzie we repaired to the schoolhouse, where we found assembled a dozen girls and as many boys, among whom was Tom Jenkins.  Tom was a great admirer of beauty, and hence I could never account for the preference he had hitherto shown for me, who my brothers called “bung-eyed” and Sally “raw-boned.”  He, however, didn’t think so.  My eyes, he said, were none too large, and many a night had he carried home my books for me, and many a morning had he brought me nuts and raisins, to say nothing of the time when I found in my desk a little note, which said—­But everybody who’s been to school, knows what it said!

Taking it all round we were as good as engaged; so you can judge what my feelings were when, before the night of Nellie’s first day at school, I saw Tom Jenkins giving her an orange which I had every reason to think was originally intended for me!  I knew very well that Nellie’s brown curls and eyes had done the mischief; and though I did not love her the less, I blamed him the more for his fickleness, for only a week before he had praised my eyes, calling them a “beautiful indigo blue,” and all that.  I was highly incensed, and when on our way from school he tried to speak good-humoredly, I said, “I’d thank you to let me alone!  I don’t like you, and never did!”

He looked sorry for a minute, but soon forgot it all in talking to Nellie, who after he had left us said “he was a cleverish kind of boy, though he couldn’t begin with William Raymond.”  After that I was very cool toward Tom, who attached himself more and more to Nellie, saying “she had the handsomest eyes he ever saw;” and, indeed, I think it chiefly owing to those soft, brown, dreamy eyes that I am not now “Mrs. Tom Jenkins of Jenkinsville,” a place way out West, whither Tom and his mother have migrated.

One day Nellie was later at school than usual, giving as a reason that their folks had company—­a Mr. Sherwood and his mother, from Hartford; and adding that if I’d never tell anybody as long as I lived and breathed she’d tell me something.

Of course I promised, and Nellie told me how she guessed that Mr. Sherwood, who was rich and handsome, liked Adaline.  “Anyway, Adaline likes him,” said she, “and oh, she’s so nice and good when he’s around.  I ain’t ‘Nell, you hateful thing’ then, but I’m ’Sister Nellie.’  They are going to ride this morning, and perhaps they’ll go by here.  There they are, now!” and looking toward the road I saw Mr. Sherwood and Adaline Gilbert on horseback, riding leisurely past the schoolhouse.  She was nodding to Nellie, but he was looking intently at Mabel, who was sitting near the window.  I know he asked Adaline something about her, for I distinctly heard a part of her reply—­“a poor factory girl,” and Adaline’s head tossed scornfully, as if that were a sufficient reason why Mabel should be despised.