Martin put his box in his pocket, and walked off in the direction of the barn.
At dinner-time, Nelly came home quite radiant. Lessons had gone smoothly. Miss Harrow had praised her for industry at her books, “and, would you believe it, Martin,” she added in an accent of high satisfaction, “Melinda didn’t make but two faces at me all the whole morning! Wasn’t that nice? They were pretty bad ones, though,—bad enough to last! She screwed her nose all up, this way! Well, if you’ll give me the box now, I’ll take it to her this afternoon. I don’t feel hard against Melindy at all, now.”
Martin brought it to her after dinner, with great alacrity; and Nell walked very slowly to school with it in her hands, opening and shutting the lid a dozen times along the road, and eyeing it in an admiring, fascinated way, as though she would have no objection in the world to retain possession of it herself.
It was a hard effort to offer it to Melinda. So pretty a box she had never seen before.
“I mean to ask Martin,” she thought, “if he cannot find me another just like it.”
Near the door of Mrs. Harrow’s little house, Nelly encountered her tormentor, quite unexpectedly. She was standing outside, talking in a loud, boisterous way to two or three of the other children. Melinda was a tall, rather good-looking girl, of about fourteen years of age. She was attired in a great deal of gaudy finery, but was far from being neat or clean in appearance. At the present time, a large, freshly-torn hole in her dress, showed that in the interval between schools, she had been exercising her warlike propensities, and had come off, whether victor or not, a little the worse for wear. Her quilted red silk hood was now cocked fiercely over her eyes, in a very prophetic way. Nelly knew from that, as soon as she saw her, that she was in a bad frame of mind.
Not daring to speak to her then, Nelly was quietly proceeding towards the door of the school, when with one or two tremendous strides, Melinda met her face to face.
“How did you like the big thumping I gave you yesterday?” she asked, with a grim smile.
Nelly walked on very fast, trying to keep from saying anything at all, in the fear that her indignation might express itself too plainly.
“Why don’t you speak up?” cried Melinda.