He knew he should manage it when he saw Eloise. She could not tell him of the need there was of money in her grandmother's home, or the still greater need if she took the trip to California which she feared she must take. She only looked her anxiety, and Mr. Bills, whose heart Mrs. Biggs said was "big as a barn," warmed toward her, while mentally he began to doubt her ability to "fill the bill," as he put it, she looked so young and so small. "I'll let her off easy, if I have to," he thought, and he said, "Folks'll want school to begin as advertised. You can't go, but there's Ruby Ann Patrick. She'll be glad to supply. She's kep' the school five years runnin'. She wanted it when we hired you. She's out of a job, and will be glad to take it till you can walk. I'll see her to-day. You look young to manage unruly boys, and there's a pile of 'em in Deestrick No. 5 want lickin' half the time. Ruby Ann can lick 'em. She's five feet nine. You ain't more'n five." Eloise did not tell him how tall she was. In fact, she didn't know. She must look very diminutive in Mr. Bills's eyes, she thought, and hastened to say, "I taught boys and young men older than I am in the normal at Mayville, and never had any trouble. I had only to speak to or look at them." "I b'lieve you, I b'lieve you," Mr. Bills said. "I should mind you myself every time if you looked at me, but boys ain't alike. There's Tom Walker, ringleader in every kind of mischief, the wust feller you ever see. Ruby Ann had one tussle with him, and came off Number One. He'd most likely raise Cain with a schoolmarm who couldn't walk and went on crutches." "Oh-h!" Eloise said despairingly. "I shall not have to do that!" "Mebby not; mebby not. Sprained ankles mostly does, though. I had to when I sprained mine. I used to hobble to the well and pump cold water on it; that's tiptop for a sprain. Well, I must go now and see Ruby Ann. Good-day. Keep a stiff upper lip, and you'll pull through. Widder Biggs is a fust rate nurse, and woman, too. Little too much tongue, mebby. Hung in the middle and plays both ways. Knows everybody's history and age from the Flood down. She'll get at yours from A to izzard. Good-day!" He was gone, and Eloise was alone with her pain and homesickness and discouragement. Turn which way she would, there was not much brightness in her sky, except when she thought of Jack Harcourt, whose hand on her hair she could feel just as he had felt her wet hand on his neck hours after the spot was dried, ft seemed perfectly natural and proper that he should care for her, just as it did that the lady at the Crompton House should send her a hat. It was lying on a chair near her with the slippers, and she took it up and examined it again very carefully, admiring the fineness of the leghorn, the beauty of the lilac wreath, and the texture of the ribbons.