Then, suddenly, her mind jumped three miles and a half. What was Pearse doing? Had they found him? She came back, with a jerk, to the schoolroom, looked down at the faces of her schoolmates as they sat at their desks, arms folded, listening; at the plump, expectant ladies in the chairs. Then she repeated her statement about the stag. Three times she said it; that stag, if he was full the first time, must have been quite dangerously filled when she got to the next line— “As danced the Moon on Monan’s rill.” Well, even then it would have been all right; she might have gone on from there. But there was a snicker all over the room, and she realized that she had said “Ronan’s mill.” Even the visiting ladies were laughing at her. She burst into tears and sat down, hiding her face in her arms on the desk top. She heard Miss Belle—Miss Belle, angry and mortified—telling her that she would have to stay after school! Nothing to do about that. She just sat with her head on her desk and cried and cried. The company left. The other scholars all filed out—Miss Belle was letting them go a little early—Hilda heard them getting on their ponies, riding away. Then Miss Belle came and sat down in the seat beside her and put her arm around her, saying, more kindly: “What’s the matter, Hilda? You’re not a bit like yourself to-day.” “Oh, Miss Belle,” Hilda’s face, all swollen with tears, came up; she laid hold of the ruffle on Miss Belle’s shoulder with shaking fingers; “oh, Miss Belle—let me go home. I—I’ll do anything for you—if you’ll only let me go home—now.” “Why, Hilda,” the teacher was only a big girl herself, “I believe you’re sick. Do you feel bad? Is that it?” “I feel awful,” choked Hilda, and didn’t mean to be untruthful; but she knew afterwards how Miss Belle understood that. “If you’ll just let me go home, Miss Belle—it’ll be all right. Let me go, please.” “In a minute.” Miss Belle got up and hurried to her desk and began writing something. She came back, folding it, asking anxiously, “Do you think you can stand the ride home, Hilda? I hate to send you alone. Want me to go with you? I will, if you need me. It’s out of my way, and I’ve written to Mr. Pearsall—but if you think you need me—” “Oh, no, Miss Belle. I’m all right.” Hilda was on her feet, reaching for the note for Uncle Hank. “Yes’m, I can ride home all right. Oh—thank you, Miss Belle!” “Well,” the teacher stood in the door watching the streaking figure of a little girl on a pony vanishing down the trail toward the Three Sorrows, “well—if that was any one else but Hilda Van Brunt I’d say she was putting it all on to get sent home. Maybe I needn’t have said three days—but Mr. Pearsall will know when he sees her.”