Ere long, exaggerated rumors reached Meadow Brook of the very creditable manner in which I had acquitted myself at the examination, whereupon Aunt Sally Wright was quite taken aback. Soon rallying, however, she had recourse to her second prediction, which was that “I should not teach more than half the summer out.” Perhaps I wrong the old lady, but I cannot help thinking that the ill-natured stories concerning myself, which she set afloat at Pine Hill, were in a great measure the cause of her prophecy being fulfilled. Never before, to my knowledge, had she visited at Capt. Thompson’s, but now she spent an entire day there, bringing back to us the intelligence that John Thompson, a boy just one year my senior, was going to stay at home that summer, as “Miss Cap’n Thompson hadn’t no idee I could teach him.” Added to this was the comforting assurance, that “Cap’n Thompson was hoppin’ mad because Mr. Randall had hired me in preference to his sister _Dell_, who had herself applied for the school.” This, as I afterwards learned, was the secret of the dislike which, from the first, the Thompsons entertained for me. They had no daughter, but the captain’s half sister Dell had lived with him ever since his marriage, and between her and their hopeful son John, the affections of himself and wife were nearly equally divided. Dell Thompson was a proud, overbearing girl, about eighteen years of age, who esteemed herself far better than her neighbors, with whom she seldom associated, her acquaintances living mostly at what was called “the Centre” of the town. It seems that she had applied for the summer school, but remembering that she had once called him a “country clown and his wife ignorant and vulgar,” Mr. Randall had refused her and accepted me. Notwithstanding that the people of Pine Hill generally disliked the Thompsons, there was among them a feeling of dissatisfaction when it became known that I was preferred to Dell, who, they thought, would have given _tone_ and _character_ to the school, for “it wasn’t every _big bug_ who would stoop to teach.” Of this state of affairs I was fortunately ignorant, and never do I remember a happier morning than that on which I first took upon myself the responsibilities of a teacher. By sunrise, the little hair trunk, which grandma lent me, was packed and stood waiting on the doorstep, where I had carried it, thinking thus to accelerate the movements of my father, who did not seem to be in any particular hurry, telling me, “he’d no idea that school would be commenced before we got there!” Grandma had suggested the propriety of letting down my dresses, a movement which I warmly seconded, but mother said “No, she did not like to see little girls dressed like grown up women;” so, in my new plaid gingham and white pantalets, I waited impatiently until the clock struck seven, at which time father announced himself ready. “When will you come home?” asked mother, as she followed me to the gate.