Chippinge Borough by Stanley J. Weyman — Read

It was perhaps fortunate for Miss Hilhouse that she did not hazard any remarks on that second escapade in the Square. Whether this amendment in her manners was due to Miss Sibson's apothegms, or to the general desire of the school to see the new teacher's new pelisse-which could only be gratified by favour-or to a threatening rigidity in Mary Smith's bearing must remain a question. But children are keen observers. Their senses are as sharp as their tongues are cruel. And it is certain that Miss Smith had not read four lines of the fifth chapter of The Fairchild Family before a certain sternness in her tone was noted by those who had not already marked the danger signal in her eyes. For the gentlest eyes can dart lightnings on occasion. The sheep will turn in defence of its lamb. Nor ever walked woman who could not fight for her secret and her pride.

So Miss Hilhouse bit her tongue and kept silence, the girls behaved beautifully, and Mary read The Fairchild Family to them in a tone of monotony that perfectly reflected the future as she saw it. She had been very foolish, and very weak, but she was not without excuse. He had saved her life, she could plead that. True, brought up as she had been at Clapham, shielded from all dealings with the other sex, taught to regard them as wolves, or at best as a race with which she could have no safe parley, she should have known better. She should have known that handsome, courteous, masterful-eyed, as they were-and with a way with them that made poor girls' hearts throb at one moment and stand still at another-she should have known that they meant nothing. That they were still men, and that she must not trust them, must not think of them, must not expect to find them more steadfast to a point than the weather-cock on St. Mary's at Redcliffe.