“There are strange people everywhere, Mr. Langdon,” she said, “and I don’t think our schoolroom is an exception.  I am glad you believe in the force of transmitted tendencies.  It would break my heart, if I did not think that there are faults beyond the reach of everything but God’s special grace.  I should die, if I thought that my negligence or incapacity was alone responsible for the errors and sins of those I have charge of.  Yet there are mysteries I do not know how to account for.”  She looked all round the schoolroom, and then said, in a whisper, “Mr. Langdon, we had a girl that stole, in the school, not long ago.  Worse than that, we had a girl who tried to set us on fire.  Children of good people, both of them.  And we have a girl now that frightens me so”—­

The door opened, and three misses came in to take their seats:  three types, as it happened, of certain classes, into which it would not have been difficult to distribute the greater number of the girls in the school.—­Hannah Martin.  Fourteen years and three months old.  Short-necked, thick-waisted, round-cheeked, smooth, vacant forehead, large, dull eyes.  Looks good-natured, with little other expression.  Three buns in her bag, and a large apple.  Has a habit of attacking her provisions in school-hours.—­Rosa Milburn.  Sixteen.  Brunette, with a rare-ripe flush in her cheeks.  Color comes and goes easily.  Eyes wandering, apt to be downcast.  Moody at times.  Said to be passionate, if irritated.  Finished in high relief.  Carries shoulders well back and walks well, as if proud of her woman’s life, with a slight rocking movement, being one of the wide-flanged pattern, but seems restless,—­a hard girl to look after.  Has a romance in her pocket, which she means to read in school-time.—­Charlotte Ann Wood.  Fifteen.  The poetess before mentioned.  Long, light ringlets, pallid complexion, blue eyes.  Delicate child, half unfolded.  Gentle, but languid and despondent.  Does not go much with the other girls, but reads a good deal, especially poetry, underscoring favorite passages.  Writes a great many verses, very fast, not very correctly; full of the usual human sentiments, expressed in the accustomed phrases.  Under-vitalized.  Sensibilities not covered with their normal integuments.  A negative condition, often confounded with genius, and sometimes running into it.  Young people who fall out of line through weakness of the active faculties are often confounded with those who step out of it through strength of the intellectual ones.

The girls kept coming in, one after another, or in pairs or groups, until the schoolroom was nearly full.  Then there was a little pause, and a light step was heard in the passage.  The lady-teacher’s eyes turned to the door, and the master’s followed them in the same direction.