So I told her all about Harriet running away because I was so stupid, and her meeting with Mad Jeremy. I said as little about my going at him with an open knife as I could. For, after all, that was a foolish thing to do. But I told Elsie about Harriet Caw fainting, and as much as I could remember about Harriet running home and slamming herself in her room. And all the time the atmosphere in that room was getting more and more chilly, while Elsie herself would have frozen a whole shipful of beef and mutton right through the tropics. "Well," I said when I had finished my tale, "she may have got a temper, but she is a nice girl and you will like her. We shall go and see her to-morrow--I told her about you, Elsie." She flashed a look at me--like striking a vesta at night, it was. "And pray, what did you tell her about me?" "I told her that you were pretty--so did Mad Jeremy. And I told her, besides, that you would be sure to take to one another. Now, will you go and see her to-morrow?" Slowly Elsie gathered up all that belonged to her in Nance Edgar's little sitting-room--her books, her work, and a hat that had been thrown carelessly on a chair. "No," she said, the words clicking against one another like lumps of ice in a tumbler, "no, I will not go and call upon Miss Harriet Caw, from London. But there is nothing to prevent your going, Mr. Joseph Yarrow!" And she in her turn swept out and slammed the door. I sat there in Nance Edgar's winking firelight looking at my fingers one by one, and not sure of the count. If any one will please tell me what a girl will say or do in any given circumstances--well, I'll be obliged to him, that's all. I don't believe any fellow was ever so abused and browbeat in one day by girls before. And all for nothing. That is the funny part of it. For what had I done? Answer me that, if you please. Nothing--just nothing! CHAPTER XVI MR. MUSTARD'S FIRST ASSISTANT Yes, I was surprised. But there were several other and greater surprises waiting me. I got one the very next day. I met Dan McConchie on his way home from school, at the dinner hour. He was kicking his bag before him in the way that was popular at our school, where all self-respecting boys brought their books in a strap. Girls had green baize bags and always swung them like pendulums as they talked. But boys, if they had to have bags, used them as footballs. This was what Dan was doing now. He said, "Halloo, Joe Yarrow, your girl's gone and been made a teacher. You had better come back. Old Mustard is as sweet to her as sugar candy. She is teaching the babies in the little classroom--'A b--ab! B a--baa!'" He imitated the singsong of the lowest forms. Now I put no faith in Dan or any other McConchie. But I clumped him hard and sound for presuming to talk about Elsie at all or call her "my girl."