As I have said, the class was only just organized, but it was not a very small one; there must have been sixty or seventy present that night. I was in the topmost row of altos, and as soon as we began to sing I was irresistibly attracted to those about me; and to identify them with their voices was for me a singular fascination. I was but the fourth from the wall on my side, and a burner was directly above me. I took advantage of the light to criticise the countenances of my nearer contemporaries, who were all absorbed in watching our master's evolutions. I could not look at him until I had acquainted myself with my locality, as far as I could without staring, or being stared at. Next the wall, two boys (so alike that they could only have been brothers) nestled and bawled; they were dark-hued, yet sallow, and not inviting. I concluded they came from some factory, and so they did; but they did not please me enough to detain my attention,--they were beneath my own grade. So was a little girl nearest to them and next to me, but I could not help regarding her. She had the most imperturbable gaze I ever met,--great eyes of a yellow hazel, with no more expression in them than water; but her cheeks were brightly colored, and her long auburn hair was curled to her waist. An ease pervaded her that was more than elegance. She leaned and she lounged, singing in a flexible voice, without the slightest effort, and as carelessly as she looked. She wore a pink gingham frock, ill made to a degree, but her slender figure moved in and out of it like a reed; her hands were fitted into discolored light kid gloves, and she had on an amber necklace. This alone would have disgusted me, if she had not looked so unconcerned, so strange, and if I had not thought her hair so very pretty; but I did, and, as I have said, I could not avoid regarding her. She had her bonnet in her lap (a bruised muslin one, with tumbled satin strings); and I was surveying it rather closely, when she turned upon me and whispered loud, not low (and then went on singing herself, instantly), "Why don't you sing?" Scared and shocked, I drew myself away from her as far as possible, and moved my eyes to my other neighbor. It was a girl too; but I instantly felt the words "young lady" to be appropriate, though I knew not wherefore, except that she was, as it were, so perfectly self-possessed. She must be older than I am (it occurred to me), but I could not tell how much. She was, in fact, about fourteen.