Perhaps the tiny lady had some faint idea of the duties and responsibilities of wealth and station.  So she spoke to the boy.

“Are you Regulas Rothsay?” she inquired, in a soft tone.

“Yes, miss,” replied the boy.

There was an awkward pause, and then the little girl said slowly: 

“You won’t let anybody give you anything, although you have no father nor mother.  Now, why won’t you?”

“Because, I can work for all I want, all—­but—­” the boy began, and then stopped.

“You have all but what?”

“A little schooling.”

“Here’s the answer, Rule!  You are to run right away as fast as you can and take it to Mr. Ryland,” said a servant, coming out upon the porch and handing a letter to the boy.

It was a week after this interview with the lad before Cora saw him again.

He was on the lawn in front of the house.  She was at the window of the front drawing room.  As soon as she espied him she ran out to speak to him, and eagerly begged that she might teach him to read.

The boy, surprised at the suddenness and the character of such an offer, blushed, thanked the little lady, and declined, then hesitated, reflected, and then, half reluctantly, half gratefully, consented.

Cora was delighted, and frankly expressed her joy.

“Oh, Regulas, I am so glad!  Now every afternoon when I have done my lessons—­I am in Comly’s first speller, Peter Parley’s first book of history, and first book of geography, and I am as far as short division in arithmetic, and round hand in the copy book—­so as soon as I get through with my lessons, and you get through with your work, you come to this back porch, where I play, and I will bring my old primer and white slate, and I will teach you.  If you get here before I do, you wait for me.  I will never be long away.  If I get here before you, I will wait for you,” she concluded.

The Iron King, Mr. Fabian, or Mr. Clarence, passing out of the back door for an afternoon stroll in the grounds, would see the little lady seated in one of the large Quaker chairs, her feet dangling over its edge, busy with her doll’s dresses, and furtively watching her pupil, who, seated before her on one of the long piazza benches, would be poring over his primer or his slate.

As time went on every one began to wonder at the earnestness and constancy of this childish friendship.

So the lessons went on through all the spring and summer and early autumn of that year.

Before the leaves had fallen Regulas had learned all she could teach him.

Then their parting came about naturally, inevitably.  When the weather grew cold, the lessons could no longer be given out on the exposed piazza, and the little teacher could not be permitted to bring her rough and ragged pupil into the house.

Cora begged of her kind Uncle Clarence some of his old school books, which she knew to be among the rubbish of the garret, which was her own rainy-day play room in summer, and offered the books to the boy as a loan from herself, because she dared not offer the lad a gift.