Perhaps it was because she wasn't very strong, and perhaps
because she wasn't used over well by those who had charge of her, or
perhaps it was because my life was lonely, that my heart warmed to the
child. It all seems like a dream now, since that April morning when
little Mary stood in front of my desk with her pretty eyes looking down
bashfully and her soft hair falling over her face. One day I look up,
and six years have gone by,--as they go by in dreams,--and among the
scholars is a tall girl of sixteen, with serious, womanly eyes which I
cannot trust myself to look upon. The old life has come to an end. The
child has become a woman and can teach the master now. So help me
Heaven, I didn't know that I loved her until that day!
"Long after the children had gone home I sat in the schoolroom with my
face resting on my hands. There was her desk, the afternoon shadows
falling across it. It never looked empty and cheerless before. I went
and stood by the low chair, as I had stood hundreds of times. On the
desk was a pile of books, ready to be taken away, and among the rest a
small Latin grammar which we had studied together. What little despairs
and triumphs and happy hours were associated with it! I took it up
curiously, as if it were some gentle dead thing, and turned over the
pages, and could hardly see them. Turning the pages, idly so, I came to
a leaf on which something was written with ink, in the familiar girlish
hand.
Pages:
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52