“Be you mad?” asked Jessy, humbly.

“No, I am not,” replied Maria.  “But you should not say ‘be you mad’; you should say are you angry.”

“Yes’m,” said Jessy Ramsey.

Jessy withdrew, still with timid eyes of devotion fixed upon her teacher, and Maria seated herself behind her desk, took out some paper, and began to write an exercise for the children to copy upon the black-board.  She was trembling from head to foot.  She felt exactly as if George Ramsey had been looking at her with eyes of love, and she remembered that she was married, and it seemed to her that she was horribly guilty.

Maria never once looked again at Jessy Ramsey, at least not fully in the eyes, during the day.  The child’s mouth began to assume a piteous expression.  After school that afternoon she lingered, as usual, to walk the little way before their roads separated, so to speak, in her beloved teacher’s train.  But Maria spoke quite sharply to her.

“You had better run right home, Jessy,” she said.  “It is snowing, and you will get cold.  I have a few things to see to before I go.  Run right home.”

Poor little Jessy Ramsey, who was as honestly in love with her teacher as she would ever be with any one in her life, turned obediently and went away.  Maria’s heart smote her.

“Jessy,” she called after her, and the child turned back half frightened, half radiant.  Maria put her arm around her and kissed her.  “Wash your face before you come to school to-morrow, dear,” she said.  “Now, good-bye.”

“Yes’m,” said Jessy, and she skipped away quite happy.  She thought teacher had rebuffed her because her face was not washed, and that did not trouble her in the least.  Lack of cleanliness or lack of morals, when brought home to them, could hardly sting any scion of that branch of the Ramseys.  Lack of affection could, however, and Jessy was quite happy in thinking that teacher loved her, and was only vexed because her face was dirty.  Jessy had not gone a dozen paces from the school-house before she stopped, scooped up some snow in a little, grimy hand, and rubbed her cheeks violently.  Then she wiped them on her new petticoat.  Her cheeks tingled frightfully, but she felt that she was obeying a mandate of love.

Maria did not see her.  She in reality lingered a little over some exercises in the school-house before she started on her way home.  It was snowing quite steadily, and the wind still blew.  The snow made the wind seem as evident as the wings of a bird.  Maria hurried along.  When she reached the bridge across the Ramsey River she saw a girl standing as if waiting for her.  The girl was all powdered with snow and she had on a thick veil, but Maria immediately knew that she was Lily Merrill.  Lily came up to her as she reached her with almost an abject motion.  She had her veiled face lowered before the storm, and she carried herself as if her spirit also was lowered before some wind of fate.  She pressed timidly close to Maria when she reached her.