Elizabeth's head came up. Her face was radiant, her gray eyes shone starlike.
"Oh, Miss Hillary!" she gasped, overcome with gratitude at this giving back of her self-respect. Miss Hillary picked up the next essay, and the little girl turned way. But she could not leave without one word of hope.
"Oh, Miss Hillary," she whispered again, "do you think you could let me pass? If you'll only not put me in Mary's class, I'll, I'll—I believe I could learn to spell!" she finally added, as the most extravagant promise she could possibly make.
Miss Hillary smiled again. She looked kindly at the small, anxious figure, the pleading face with its big eyes, the slim, brown hands twisting nervously the long, heavy braid of brown hair with the golden strand through it.
"Well, I shall do my best," she said. "You can certainly write, even if you can't do arithmetic. Now run away and play."
And, wild with hope and joy, Elizabeth dashed down the aisle and out of the door, so noisy and boisterous that for a moment her teacher felt constrained to call her back and give her another lesson in deportment. For Miss Hillary did not yet understand.
CHAPTER VII
THE AGE OF CHIVALRY
Many years later there came days in Elizabeth Gordon's life when she achieved a certain amount of fame, but never at their height did any day shine so radiantly for her or bring her anything of the exaltation of that moment when she and Rosie tremblingly took their places side by side at the foot of the Junior Fourth class.