"Miss Melville, _I can't_! It isn't in me--you don't know! Here this very morning I got late to school, tipping Winnie over in a raft--drenched through both of us, and mother, so patient and sweet with the dry stockings she'd just mended, and wasn't I sorry? Didn't I think about it all the way to school--the whole way, Miss Melville? And didn't I make up my mind I'd be as good as a kitten all day, and sit still like Agnes Gaylord, and not tickle the girls, nor make you any trouble, nor anything? Then what should I do but come into the entry and see those things, and it all came like a flash how funny it would be'n I'd talk up high like Mrs. Surly 'n you wouldn't know me, and--that was the last I thought, till you took off the veil, and I wished I hadn't done it. It's just like me--I never can help anything anyhow." "I think you can," said her teacher, kindly. "You certainly had the power, when you stood out there in the entry, to stop and think before you touched the things." "I don't know," said Gypsy, shaking her head, thoughtfully; "I don't believe I had." "But you wouldn't do it again?" "I guess I wouldn't!" said Gypsy, with an emphasis. "What you can do one time, you can another," said Miss Melville. Gypsy was silent. "There's one other thing about it," continued her teacher, "besides the impropriety of playing such a trick in school hours--that is, that it was very unkind to me." "Unkind!" exclaimed Gypsy. "Yes," said Miss Melville, quietly, "unkind." "Why, Miss Melville, I wouldn't be unkind to you for anything!--I love you dearly." "Nevertheless, Gypsy, it was very unkind to deliberately set to work to annoy me and make me trouble, by getting the school into a frolic. Anything done to break the order of study-hours, or to withstand any rule of the school, is always an unkindness to a teacher. There is scarcely a girl in school that might help me more than you, Gypsy, if you chose." "I don't see how," said Gypsy, astonished. "I do," said Miss Melville, smiling, "and I always think a little vote of thanks to you, when you are quiet and well-behaved. An orderly scholar has a great deal of influence. The girls all love you, and are apt to do as they see you do, Gypsy." There was a little silence, in which Gypsy's eyes were wandering away under the apple-boughs, their twinkling dimmed and soft. At last she turned quickly, and threw her arms about her teacher's neck. "Miss Melville, if you'll give me one kiss, I'll never be an old woman again, if I live as long as Methuselah!" Miss Melville kissed her, and whispered one or two little loving words of encouragement, such as nobody but Miss Melville knew how to say. But Gypsy never told what they were. "I believe there's a bolt left out of me somewhere," she said, as they left the school-house together; "what do you suppose it is?" "It is the strong, iron bolt, '_stop and think_,' Gypsy." "Um--yes--perhaps it is," said Gypsy, and walked slowly home. CHAPTER IV