Still they stared toward the new-comer, and he turned again. The little girl's flushed face was still hidden by her bonnet, but before he reached her to tell her quietly she must take it off, she had seen that all the heads about her were bare and was pulling it off herself--disclosing a riotous mass of black hair, combed straight back from her forehead and gathered into a Psyche knot at the back of her head. Slowly the flush passed, but not for some time did she lift the extraordinary lashes that veiled her eyes to take a furtive glance about her. But, as the pupils bent more to their books, she grew bolder and looked about oftener and keenly, and she saw with her own eyes and in every pair of eyes whose glance she met, how different she was from all the other girls. For it was a look of wonder and amusement that she encountered each time, and sometimes two girls would whisper behind their hands and laugh, or one would nudge her desk-mate to look around at the stranger, so that the flush came back to Mavis's face and stayed there. The tall teacher saw, too, and understood, and, to draw no more attention to her than was necessary, he did not go near her until little recess. As he expected, she did not move from her seat when the other pupils trooped out, and when the room was empty he beckoned her to come to his desk, and in a moment, with her two books clasped in her hands, she stood shyly before him, meeting his kind gray searching eyes with unwavering directness. "You were rather late coming to school." "I was afeerd." The teacher smiled, for her eyes were fearless. "What is your name?" "Mavis Hawn." Her voice was slow, low, and rich, and in some wonder he half unconsciously repeated the unusual name. "Where do you live?" "Down the road a piece--'bout a whoop an' a holler." "What? Oh, I see." He smiled, for she meant to measure distance by sound, and she had used merely a variation of the "far cry" of Elizabethan days. "Your father works in tobacco?" She nodded. "You come from near the Ohio River?" She looked puzzled. "I come from the mountains." "Oh!" He understood now her dress and speech, and he was not surprised at the answer to his next question. "I hain't nuver been to school. Pap couldn't spare me." "Can you read and write?" "No," she said, but she flushed, and he knew straightway the sensitiveness and pride with which he would have to deal. "Well," he said kindly, "we will begin now."