A girl of about seventeen entered.  She was tall and slender, but rounded, with a peculiar undulation of movement, such as one sometimes sees in perfectly untutored country-girls, whom Nature, the queen of graces, has taken in hand, but more commonly in connection with the very highest breeding of the most thoroughly trained society.  She was a splendid scowling beauty, black-browed, with a flash of white teeth which was always like a surprise when her lips parted.  She wore a checkered dress, of a curious pattern, and a camel’s-hair scarf twisted a little fantastically about her.  She went to her seat, which she had moved a short distance apart from the rest, and, sitting down, began playing listlessly with her gold chain, as was a common habit with her, coiling it and uncoiling it about her slender wrist, and braiding it in with her long, delicate fingers.  Presently she looked up.  Black, piercing eyes, not large,—­a low forehead, as low as that of Clytie in the Townley bust,—­black hair, twisted in heavy braids,—­a face that one could not help looking at for its beauty, yet that one wanted to look away from for something in its expression, and could not for those diamond eyes.  They were fixed on the lady-teacher now.  The latter turned her own away, and let them wander over the other scholars.  But they could not help coming back again for a single glance at the wild beauty.  The diamond eyes were on her still.  She turned the leaves of several of her books, as if in search of some passage, and, when she thought she had waited long enough to be safe, once more stole a quick look at the dark girl.  The diamond eyes were still upon her.  She put her kerchief to her forehead, which had grown slightly moist; she sighed once, almost shivered, for she felt cold; then, following some ill-defined impulse, which she could not resist, she left her place and went to the young girl’s desk.

“What do you want of me, Elsie Venner?” It was a strange question to put, for the girl had not signified that she wished the teacher to come to her.

“Nothing,” she said.  “I thought I could make you come.”  The girl spoke in a low tone, a kind of half-whisper.  She did not lisp, yet her articulation of one or two consonants was not absolutely perfect.

“Where did you get that flower, Elsie?” said Miss Darley.  It was a rare alpine flower, which was found only in one spot among the rocks of The Mountain.

“Where it grew,” said Elsie Veneer.  “Take it.”  The teacher could not refuse her.  The girl’s finger tips touched hers as she took it.  How cold they were for a girl of such an organization!

The teacher went back to her seat.  She made an excuse for quitting the schoolroom soon afterwards.  The first thing she did was to fling the flower into her fireplace and rake the ashes over it.  The second was to wash the tips of her fingers, as if she had been another Lady Macbeth.  A poor, over-tasked, nervous creature,—­we must not think too much of her fancies.