Mrs. Biggs belonged to the radical party which favored a change of teachers. Five years was long enough for one person to teach in the same place, she said, and they wanted somebody modern and younger. She laid a great deal of stress upon that, and on one occasion, when giving her opinion over her gate to a neighbor, had added "smaller and better-looking." Ruby was not a favorite with Mrs. Biggs, whom she had called an inveterate gossip, hunting up everbody's history and age, and making them out two or three years older than they were. She had lived at home and kept Mrs. Biggs out of a boarder five years. She had called Tim a lout, and kept him after school several times when his mother needed him. Consequently Mrs. Biggs's sympathies were all with Eloise, who was young and small and good-looking, and she flouted the idea of having Ruby hired even for a few days. "It's just a wedge to git her in again," she had said to Tim, with whom she had discussed the matter. "I know Ruby Ann, and she'll jump at the chance, and keep it, too. She can wind Mr. Bills round her fingers. I'd rather have Miss Smith with one laig than Ruby Ann with three. Tom Walker ain't goin' to raise Ned with such a slip of a girl." "I ruther guess not, when I'm there," Tim said, squaring himself up as if ready to fight a dozen Tom Walkers, when, in fact, he was afraid of one, and usually kept out of his way. Mrs. Biggs had not expected Ruby Ann to call, and her face wore a vinegary expression when she opened the door to her. "Yes, I s'pose you can see her, but too much company ain't good for sprained ankles," she replied in response to Ruby's inquiry if she could see Miss Smith. "You'll find her in the parlor, but don't stay long. Talkin' 'll create a fever in her laig." Ruby was accustomed to Mrs. Biggs's vagaries, and did not mind them. "I'll be very discreet," she said, as she passed on to the parlor, curious to see the girl who had been preferred to herself. She had heard from Mr. Bills that Eloise "was handsome as blazes," but she was not prepared for the face which looked up at her as she entered the room. Something in the eyes appealed to her as it had to Mr. Bills, and any prejudice she might have had melted away at once, and she began talking to Eloise as familiarly as if she had known her all her life. At first Eloise drew back from the powerfully built woman, who stood up so tall before her, and whose voice was so strong and masculine, and whose eyes travelled over her so rapidly, taking in every detail of her dress and every feature of her face. Mrs. Biggs's disfiguring cotton gown had been discarded for a loose white jacket, which, with its knots of pink ribbon, was very becoming, and Ruby found herself studying it closely, and wondering if she could make one like it, and how she would look in it. Then she noticed the hands, so small and so white, and felt an irresistible desire to take one of them in her broad palm.