at the inn.

As Miss Josephine Bayley looked over her little class that first morning, she felt desperately at a loss to know how to begin. Each child, it seemed, was studying something different from all the others, and, to add to her discomfort, the new teacher realized that the eyes of Jessica Archer, which were like her father’s, were watching her every move as though she had been admonished by her elders to observe and report all that happened.

The one bright spot was the corner where the wide-awake, intelligent young Martins sat, and Josephine Bayley found herself actually glad that they were “blue-blooded.”

Just as the new teacher was becoming almost panicky at the newness of everything, the slim, freckled hand of Dixie Martin appeared on high, and when Miss Bayley nodded, that small maiden arose, and, going to the desk on the platform, she said softly, “Please, teacher, we usually begin with singing. We all know the ‘Good-Morning’ song. I’ll lead if you want me to; I often do.”

“Oh, I’d be ever so grateful if you would.”

And so Dixie turned around and began to sing, in a clear, bird-like voice, a simple little melody that the older pupils knew and sang with her. There were four stanzas, and when the song was finished, the hand of Jessica Archer went up, and, rising, she said that as she was the smartest pupil in the school, she was always asked to read first.

“Very well, Jessica. My pupils, I am sure, will all be glad to help their new teacher to-day by making suggestions. Now, if you will read where you left off last term, I shall better understand how to class you.”

“Oh, I am class A,” the small girl said proudly, “and Dixie Martin and Ken and Ira Jenkins are class B, and the rest are class C.&