There was something in my novel relation to the girl as her teacher peculiarly fascinating to me. At recess she remained in her seat and kept quietly at her work.
I went down and stood over her. "Can I help you, my dear?" I said.
Whatever might have been the pedantic or obtrusively condescending quality of those words, Rebecca seemed to find nothing distasteful in them. She looked up with a "Thank you," and a pleased, trustful face like a child's. "I can't do this one," said she. "I've finished the rest, but this wouldn't come right, somehow."
It was a sum in simple addition. I could not help a feeling of deep surprise and commiseration that one of Rebecca's age should have stumbled at it at all, but I essayed to examine it very closely and worked it out for her as slowly as possible. "Do you see your mistake?" I said.
She blushed painfully. The tears almost stood in her eyes.
"Yes, and I knew you'd have to find out how dull I was," she said; "but I dreaded it. When Miss Waite was here, mother was sick and I didn't go to school at all, and Miss Waite took me for a friend; and I told mother I'd most rather not go to school to you, for Miss Waite said you'd be a real friend, and I knew you wouldn't want me when you found how dull I was."
I looked at the girl, and a bright, hesitating smile woke in her face.
"Do you know, Rebecca," I said, "I don't choose my friends for their mental qualifications—for what they know; I select them just as people do horses—by their teeth. Let me see yours."
Rebecca laughed most musically, thus disclosing two brilliant rows of ivories. I had noticed them before.
"You'll do!" I exclaimed, lightly. "I take you into my heart of hearts. Now, what is your standard of choice? What charming characteristic do you First require in a friend, Rebecca?"