Ester Ried Yet Speaking | Page 4

all around the front of her velvet hat, to the buttons of her
neat-fitting boots, she seemed to bring a new atmosphere into the room.
Yesterday's rain was over, and the pleasant south windows were aglow
with sunshine. As Mrs. Roberts sat down the sunbeams came and
played about her face, and she seemed in keeping with them, and with

nothing else around her.
The superintendent bestowed curious glances on her during the opening
exercises. He had seen the shadow on young Ried's face when he
seated her, and had found time to question.
"Whom have we here?"
"Mrs. Evan Roberts. She wants to try the vacant class! I did not ask her,
Mr. Durant; she invited herself."
Mr. Durant looked over at her, and tried to keep his eyes from smiling.
"She looks very diminutive in every way for such an undertaking. They
will frighten her out before she commences, will they not?"
"I presume so; but I didn't know what to do. She wanted to come, and I
could not tell her she must not."
"No, of course,--the occasion is too rare to lose. Very few people ask
the privilege of trying that class. There is no teacher for them to-day;
and your Mrs. Roberts must learn by experience that some things are
more difficult than others. I will let her try it."
Meantime, "the boys" of the dreaded class were studying the new face.
She was the only person not already seated before a class, and they
naturally judged that she was to be their next victim. They looked at her
and then at one another, and winked and coughed and sneezed and
nudged elbows and giggled outright, every one of them,--meantime
chewing tobacco with all their might, and expectorating freely
wherever he judged it would be most offensive.
Alfred Ried watched them, inwardly groaning. Being used to their
faces, he could plainly read that they anticipated a richer time than
usual, and rejoiced greatly over the youth and beauty of their victim.
But young Ried was not the only one who watched. Mrs. Roberts,
without seeming to be aware of their presence, lost not a wriggle or a

nudge. She was studying her material; and it must be confessed that
they startled her not a little. They represented a different type of
humanity from her Chautauqua boys, or her boys in the old church at
home,--rather, an advanced stage of both those types.
When Mr. Durant came toward her, the look on his face was not
reassuring, it so plainly said that he expected failure, and was sorry for
her as well as for himself. However, with as good grace as he could
assume, he led her to the seat prepared for the teacher, and gave her a
formal introduction.
"Boys, this is Mrs. Roberts, who is willing to try to teach you to-day. I
wish you would show her that you know how to behave yourselves."
Mrs. Roberts wished that he had left her to introduce herself, or that he
had said almost anything rather than what he did; the mischievous
gleam in several pairs of eyes said that they meant to show her
something that they considered far more interesting than that.
Many were the sympathetic glances that were bestowed on the young
and pretty lady as she went to her task. As for Alfred Ried, there was
more than sympathy in his face. He was vexed with the young
volunteer and vexed with himself.
He told himself savagely that this was what came of his silly habit of
thinking aloud. If only he had kept his anxieties about that class to
himself, Mrs. Roberts would never have heard of it, and been tempted
to put herself in such a ridiculous position; and if this episode did not
break him of the habit, he did not know what would.
He was presently, however, given a class of small boys, with enough of
original and acquired depravity about them to keep him intensely
employed, and the entire school settled to work.
CHAPTER II.
"WHAT DID IT ALL AMOUNT TO, ANYHOW?"

Settled, that is, so far as the class of boys in the corner would permit
the use of that term. They had not settled in the least. Two of them
indulged in a louder burst of laughter than before, just as Mrs. Roberts
took her seat. Yet her face was in no wise ruffled.
"Good afternoon," she said, with as much courtesy as she would have
used in addressing gentlemen. "I wonder if you know that I am a
stranger in this great city? You are almost the first acquaintances that I
am making among the young people, and I have a fancy that I would
like to have you all for my friends. Suppose we enter into