A man dressed as a miner, carrying a long-handled shovel, came slowly through the woods. A red handkerchief tied around his head under his hat, with the loose ends hanging from beneath, did not add much favor to his unprepossessing face. He did not perceive the master and M’liss until he was close upon them. When he did, he stopped suddenly and gazed at them with an expression of lowering distrust. M’liss drew nearer to the master. “Good-mornin’—picknickin’, eh?” he asked, with an attempt at geniality that was more repulsive than his natural manner. “How are you—prospecting, eh?” said the master quietly, after the established colloquial formula of Red Mountain. “Yes—a little in that way.” The stranger still hesitated, apparently waiting for them to go first, a matter which M’liss decided by suddenly taking the master’s hand in her quick way. What she said was scarcely audible, but the master, parting her hair over her forehead, kissed her, and so, hand in hand, they passed out of the damp aisles and forest odors into the open sunlit road. But M’liss, looking back, saw that her old seat was occupied by the hopeful prospector, and fancied that in the shadows of her former throne something of a gratified leer overspread his face. “He’ll have to dig deep to find the crab apples,” said the child to the master, as they came to the Red Mountain road. When Aristides came to school that day he was confronted by M’liss. But neither threats nor entreaties could extract from that reticent youth the whereabout of the memorandum book nor where he got it. Two or three days afterward, during recess, he approached M’liss, and beckoned her one side. “Well,” said M’liss impatiently. “Did you ever read the story of ‘Ali Baba’?” “Yes.” “Do you believe it?” “No.” “Well,” said that sage infant, wheeling around on his stout legs, “_it’s true!_” CHAPTER IV WHICH HAS A GOOD MORAL TENDENCY Somewhat less spiteful in her intercourse with the other scholars, M’liss still retained an offensive attitude toward Clytemnestra. Perhaps the jealous element was not entirely stilled in her passionate little breast. Perhaps it was that Clytemnestra’s round curves and plump outlines afforded an extensive pinching surface. But while these ebullitions were under the master’s control, her enmity occasionally took a new and irresponsible form.