“Whom have we here?”
“Mrs. Evan Roberts. She wants to try the vacant class! I did not ask her, Mr. Durant; she invited herself.”
Mr. Durant looked over at her, and tried to keep his eyes from smiling.
“She looks very diminutive in every way for such an undertaking. They will frighten her out before she commences, will they not?”
“I presume so; but I didn't know what to do. She wanted to come, and I could not tell her she must not.”
“No, of course,—the occasion is too rare to lose. Very few people ask the privilege of trying that class. There is no teacher for them to-day; and your Mrs. Roberts must learn by experience that some things are more difficult than others. I will let her try it.”
Meantime, “the boys” of the dreaded class were studying the new face. She was the only person not already seated before a class, and they naturally judged that she was to be their next victim. They looked at her and then at one another, and winked and coughed and sneezed and nudged elbows and giggled outright, every one of them,—meantime chewing tobacco with all their might, and expectorating freely wherever he judged it would be most offensive.
Alfred Ried watched them, inwardly groaning. Being used to their faces, he could plainly read that they anticipated a richer time than usual, and rejoiced greatly over the youth and beauty of their victim.
But young Ried was not the only one who watched. Mrs. Roberts, without seeming to be aware of their presence, lost not a wriggle or a nudge. She was studying her material; and it must be confessed that they startled her not a little. They represented a different type of humanity from her Chautauqua boys, or her boys in the old church at home,—rather, an advanced stage of both those types.
When Mr. Durant came toward her, the look on his face was not reassuring, it so plainly said that he expected failure, and was sorry for her as well as for himself. However, with as good grace as he could assume, he led her to the seat prepared for the teacher, and gave her a formal introduction.