Lizbeth of the Dale

by Mary Esther Miller MacGregor

Vastly encouraged by these dreams, the heroine of them dried her tears, and sat listening to what was going on about her. Miss Hillary was calling each class forward, taking down their names, and testing their abilities in reading, spelling, and a few other subjects. The primary class was on the floor, and Archie was standing, straight and sturdy, right before his sister. Elizabeth did not dare raise her head, but she peeped at her little brother from under her tangle of hair. She did hope Archie would lift the name of Gordon from the mire in which she had dragged it.

Archie was certainly conducting himself manfully. He spelled every word the teacher gave him, added like lightning, and read loud and clear: "Ben has a pen and a hen. The hen is in the pen. I see Ben and the hen and the pen."

Miss Hillary looked pleased, and Archie went up head. "What is your name?" she asked kindly, and he responded, "Archie Gordon." The teacher glanced towards the culprit on the front seat. There was a strong family resemblance amongst all the Gay Gordons, and Elizabeth fairly swelled with restored self-respect.

The classes filed up, each in its turn, standing in a prim line with its toes to a chalk-mark Miss Hillary had drawn on the floor. Nothing exciting happened until Mary's class was called, and then Elizabeth turned cold with a new fear. Just as they reached the chalk-line, only half a dozen of them, Miss Hillary said: "As this Junior Third is so small a class, for convenience I believe I shall put the Senior Thirds with them. Senior Third class, rise! Forward!"

Now, Elizabeth was in the Senior Third. Strangely precocious in some ways, she was woefully lacking in many branches of school work, and barely kept a class ahead of Mary. The fear that Mary would overtake her was the one thing that spurred her to spasmodic efforts. And now, like a bolt from the blue, came the dreadful news. She and Mary were to be in the same class!

The Seniors arose and filed reluctantly forward. Rosie poked Elizabeth as she passed. Elizabeth understood Rosie's pokes better than other people's plainest statement. This one said: "Isn't this a dreadful shame? How shall we ever live it down?" And then a sudden stubborn resolution seized Elizabeth, and she sat up straight with crimsoning cheeks. She would not go up into Mary's class, no she wouldn't! The teacher had said she must sit there until she had learned to be mannerly. Well, she would then! She hadn't learned yet, and she likely never would. And she would sit there on that front seat until she was older than old Granny Johnstone, who spoke only Gaelic and had no teeth, before she would go up in the same class with Mary! Mary was a good speller, and might get ahead of her, and oh, how John and Charles Stuart and Malcolm and Jean would talk if Mary beat her at school! Elizabeth grew hot at the bare thought.

The big class had just arranged itself when one little girl held up her hand. It was Katie Price, of course. Katie always told on everybody, and was only in the Junior Third herself. "Please, teacher," said Katie, "Lizzie Gordon's in the Senior Third." "Lizzie Gordon?" The teacher looked round vaguely. The swelling list of new names was puzzling her. "Where is Lizzie Gordon?"

Elizabeth did not move. To be forgotten utterly was the best she hoped for; to be noticed was the worst thing that could happen. Mary indicated her sister by a nod, and Miss Hillary grew haughty again.

"Oh," she said, "never mind her at present. We will let Lizzie Gordon remain where she is for the rest of the morning." And on she went with her work, while Lizzie Gordon, the outcast, too wicked even to be included in a disgraced class, sat and hung her head in a very abasement of soul.

She came out of the depths once at a thrilling remark of the teacher. The double-class crowded and shoved this way and that, and Miss Hillary said, just as they were about to return to their seats: "There are four or five too many in this class. I shall examine the Seniors thoroughly this afternoon, and shall allow the best four to go into the Junior Fourth."