Soon it was whispered that Gyp was working hard at school for promotion, and when he took his place in a class higher, he held his head high, and bravely worked at his lessons. Aunt Judith stood by him, and Wednesday and Saturday evenings, rain or shine, he spent at her little home, working with all his might to improve.
In the middle of the term, because of extra work that he had done under her instruction, he was again promoted.
He was steadily "catching up" with the boys of his own age. Those boys had now ceased to laugh at Gyp. He was winning their respect.
Sprite Seaford was another pupil who was working faithfully. She knew that her dear father and mother had made a great sacrifice when they had decided to live through the Fall, the Winter and, the Spring in the old house on the shore, without the little daughter, whose face was like sunshine, whose voice was music in the home.
There were times when Sprite was homesick, but those were the rare occasions when she chanced to be alone. Just now she was very happy. The weather was mild. All snow had vanished beneath the warm rays of the sun, and she ran out to know if it were really as warm as it looked. The tall evergreen trees and hedges shone dark against the sky, and Sprite stood looking at them. She had taken part in a little play on the week before, and some of the lines now flitted through her mind, and she lifted her pretty arms in graceful gesture. With the dark trees and low shrubbery behind her, she recited the lines with appropriate gesture, and telling effect.
Six small girls had taken part in the little play, and each had been chosen by Miss Kenyon, because of her talent for speaking. Sprite, with her long, golden hair, and her slender figure, had been cast for the fairy queen, whose delight it was to grant the wishes of all good children.
Now she stepped out into an open space, the beautiful garden making a lovely background for her figure. Gracefully she stood as she recited a verse that had been a part of the fairy play.
"If you're striving to excel,
And your very best you do,
You shall be rewarded well;
I will make your wish come true."
A dark figure crouched behind a clump of underbrush that the gardener had thought too pretty to cut down.
Through snow and ice the red leaves had clung to the little scrub oak, and now that a mild day had come, the leaves looked very bright as the sun lay on them.