But the words on his lips were never uttered. Without an instant’s hesitation, Dawn sprang away from him, crying, "Don’t you dare to touch me, sir!" and with catlike agility Daniel glided up the aisle and struck the selectman full in the face. Silas reeled backward off the platform, and staggered ignominiously against the wall, clutching at the blackboard rail for support, his hat rolling at his feet, and his general appearance undignified, to say the least. Daniel stood in a combative attitude, looking at him contemptuously. He would have enjoyed nothing better than to give Silas Dobson a good thrashing. "You shall answer for this, you young rascal," threatened Silas, shaking his fist at Daniel, as he recovered his balance and began to brush the chalk dust from his best coat. "This is the second offense, remember!" Silas was no match for Daniel in a fight, and he knew it. "All right," said Daniel, unconcerned. "We’ll see who does the answering, but don’t you dare touch Teacher again, d’ye hear?" "I shall have a talk with Mr. Butterworth, who is also a selectman, and with the minister," said Dawn, with dignity. "If they wish me to give up the school, I will do so, and thus save you the trouble of doing what you have threatened, Mr. Dobson." "You make a great mistake, Miss Montgomery," said Silas, thoroughly alarmed now. "I have no desire to have you give up the school." "Well, I guess you better not have," said Daniel threateningly—"not unless you want a good coat of tar and feathers." There was a look of wrath in the boy’s blue eyes that boded no good for the discomfited selectman. "You have not understood me," repeated Silas lamely, glaring with helpless anger at Daniel, and then casting a wistful appeal at the teacher. But Dawn had taken up the arithmetic, and was figuring rapidly. She only raised her head to say coldly, "Good afternoon, Mr. Dobson. You will do me a favor if you won’t come to visit the school any more. You hinder my work, and I do not like it." Then she turned to Daniel and began to explain the sum. "You have not understood me," murmured Silas again. "I guess you’ve been understood all right," said Daniel grimly over his shoulder. With a last angry glare at Dawn’s protector, and a threat he would never dare to carry out, Silas Dobson took himself off the scene of action. The next week there appeared a prominent editorial about the public school and its brilliant young teacher, who was doing so much for the youth of the village, and should be encouraged in every way by the parents. Daniel read it to a group of the boys in the school yard, and then cut it out with his penknife and pinned it to the blackboard, as an expression of the sentiments of the whole school.