She was shrewd enough not to let the class see that she was afraid; and being only boys, they saw merely what was apparent--that they had the prettiest teacher in the room. Her beauty and refinement impressed them vaguely, yet powerfully; the incipient man within them yielded its involuntary homage, and she appealed to their masculine traits as only a woman of tact can, making them feel that it would be not only wrong but ungallant and unmannerly to take advantage of her. They all speedily succumbed except one, whose rude home associations and incorrigible disposition rendered futile her appeals. After two or three Sabbaths the other boys became so incensed that he should disgrace the class that after school they lured him into an alleyway and were administering a well-deserved castigation, when Mildred, who was passing, rescued him. His fear induced him to yield to her invitation to accompany her home; and her kindness, to which he knew he was not entitled, combined with the wholesome effect of the pummelling received from the boys, led him to unite in making the class--once known as "the Incorrigibles"--the best behaved in the school. Everything apparently now promised well for the Jocelyns. Their mistaken policy of seclusion and shrinking from contact with the world during their impoverishment had given way to kindly Christian influences, and they were forming the best associations their lot permitted. All might have gone to their ultimate advantage had it not been for the hidden element of weakness so well known to the reader, but as yet unsuspected by the family.