“Julia! take your seat instantly!” said Miss Cramp, more sharply.  “Ruth! spell ‘acalycine.’”

But Ruth could not open her lips.  Had she done so she would have burst into tears.  And she could not have spelled the word right—­ nor any other word right—­ at that moment.  She merely shook her head and followed Julia to her seat, stumblingly, while a dead silence fell upon the room.

CHAPTER XX

 Uncle Jabez is mysterious

Miss Cramp was in the habit of calling upon some trustee to speak at the close of the exercises—­ usually Mr. Semple—­ and then there was a little social time before the assemblage broke up.  But the frown on the chairman’s face did not suggest that that gentleman had anything very jovial to say at the moment, and the teacher closed the exercises herself in a few words that were not at all personal to the winner of the spelling-match.

When the stir of people moving about aroused Ruth, her only thought was to get away from the schoolhouse.  Perhaps not more than two dozen people had distinctly heard what Julia so cruelly said to her; but it seemed to the girl from the Red Mill as though everybody in that throng knew that she was a charity child—­ that, as Julia said, the very frock she had on belonged to somebody else.

And to Helen!  She had never for a moment suspected that Helen had been the donor of the three frocks.  Of course everybody in the neighborhood had known all the time that she was wearing Helen’s cast-off clothing.  Everybody but Ruth herself would have recognized the dresses; she had been in the neighborhood so short a time that, of course, she was not very well acquainted with Helen’s wardrobe.

At the moment she could not feel thankful to her chum.  She could only remember Julia’s cutting words, and feel the sting to her pride that she should have shown herself before all beholders the recipient of her friend’s alms.

Nobody spoke to her as she glided through the moving crowd and reached the door.  Miss Cramp was delayed in getting to her; Helen and Tom did not see her go, for they were across the room and farthest from the door.  And so she reached the exit and slipped out.

The men and boys from outside thronged the tiny anteroom and the steps.  As she pushed through them one man said: 

“Why, here’s the smart leetle gal that took Semple’s gal down a peg—­ eh?  She’d oughter have a prize for that, that’s what she ought!”

But Ruth could not reply to this, although she knew it was meant kindly.  She went out into the darkness.  There were many horses hitched about the schoolhouse, but she reached the clear road in safety and ran toward the Red Mill.

The girl came to the mill and went quietly into the kitchen.  She had got the best of her tears now, but Aunt Alviry’s bright eyes discovered at once that she was unhappy.  Uncle Jabez did not even raise his eyes when she came in.