“No! While Miss Prentice is away you shall never again be out of my sight in waking hours—no, Miss! And for a bunch of weeds!”
“Oh Miss Trigg! they are so-o pretty——”
“Don’t you say another word!” commanded the teacher. “And you stand right here until I can signal a cab on the drive below. There, there’s one now!”
The teacher burst through the bushes and waved madly to a taxi rolling slowly along the macadam below the hill. The driver saw her and stopped.
“Come!” spoke Miss Trigg. “Here! give me those—those things.”
She snatched the lilies from Nancy’s hand and flung them in the path. The girl looked back at them longingly; but she thought it best to trifle with the teacher no further.
So she followed slowly the gaunt, angry woman down the steep path, and only the memory of the boy’s gift remained with her through the rest of the days of that last vacation at Higbee School.
Nancy was in disgrace with Miss Trigg, and was very lonely. She wondered who the boy was—and where he lived—and who the girls were with him—and if he had suffered any bad result from his adventure.
Above all, she wondered if she should ever see him again.
But that was not likely. Miss Prentice came home in a week, and in another week the school would open.