Julia was in her mother’s room, and Mary was left again with the care of the children; but in her present distraction she quite forgot Ethel, and the child, left to her own devices, managed to get the lamp-scissors and cut off her hair. The zigzag notches, bristling up in all directions, were a droll sight.

“Oh, you little mischief,” cried Mary, angry, yet unable to help laughing. “This all comes of my reading you the story of the ‘Nine Little Goslings’ yesterday. Tell me, was that what made you think of it?”

Ethel nodded her sheared head silently.

“Oh, you dreadful child. When I was trying so hard to interest you! I didn’t want to read to you! And to think you must go and do this! What do people mean by calling you good? I never cut off my hair, but nobody ever called me good!”

Mary was seized again with laughter, but, recovering, added sternly:—

“It’s very hard that I can’t shut you in the closet, but you’ll get there fast enough! Yes, I shall report you, and into the closet you’ll go, Miss Snippet. Oh, you needn’t cry; you’re the worst-looking creature in town, but the blame always falls on me! Just for those ‘Nine Little Goslings.’ And here was I working so hard to get ready for spelling-school and—”

The jingle of sleigh-bells put a sudden stop to this eloquence. Ethel wiped her eyes and stole to the window without speaking. She was usually dumb under reproof, and perhaps it was her very silence which encouraged Mary to deliver “sermonettes,” though I fear these sermonettes hardened instead of softening little Ethel’s heart. The young preacher was smiling enough, however, when she went out to enter the sleigh; and Julia, who tucked her in, looked as if she were trying her best not to be proud of her bright young sister. Mary felt very well pleased with herself in her new cloak and beaver hat, with its jaunty feather; but she was not quite satisfied with cousin Fred.

“He can’t drive half as well as Preston; and, worse than that, he doesn’t know how to spell,” thought she, as they drove on in time to the merry music of the bells. They had gone about half a mile, and Fred had used the whip several times with a lordly flourish, always to the great displeasure of Whiz, when they were suddenly brought to a pause by a loud voice calling out,—

“Stop! Hilloa, boy, stop!”

To say that they were both very much frightened would be no more than the truth. Mary’s first thought was the foolish one, “Oh, can it be a highway robber?” while Fred wondered if anything was amiss with the harness. It might be wrong side upward for aught he knew.

But they were both alarmed without cause. As soon as Fred could rein in his angry steed, it appeared that the owner of the voice was only Mary’s old friend and former teacher, Mr. Harrison Fling, and all he wished to say was,—

“Well, Miss Mary and Master Fred, are you going to spelling-school?”

“Yes, sir,” said Fred, touching his cap; while Mary hoped nothing had happened to the spelling-school to prevent their going.

“And may I ride with you?” asked the young man, with a persuasive bow and smile.

“Yes, sir, if you like,” replied Fred, rather relieved to find it was no worse, though certainly not pleased.

“I’ll drive, of course,” said Mr. Fling serenely, seating himself, and taking Mary in his lap. “Master Fred, your aunt will thank me for happening along just as I did, for you were going at breakneck speed. You would have been spilled out at the next corner.”

Fred’s brows were knitted fiercely under his cap. Was it possible that Mr. Fling was regarded as a gentleman?

“Miss Flaxie,” pursued the interloper, “I hope you’re as glad to see me again as I am to see you. Don’t you feel safer now I’ve taken the reins?”

Mary did not know what reply to make. She was not glad to see him, yet she did feel safer to have him drive. She laughed a little, and the laugh grated unpleasantly on Fred’s ears. This was the first time he had ever taken his young cousin to ride, and he thought it would be the last.

Mr. Fling talked all the way to Miss Pike’s school-house, apparently not minding in the least that nobody answered him. “Now, children,” said he, lifting Mary out, and planting her upon the door-stone before Fred could offer his hand, “now, children, with your permission, I’ll drive a little farther. I’d like to drop in on a few of my old friends in this neighborhood. Give my very best regards to Miss Pike, and tell her I hope to be back in season to hear a little of the spelling.”

“With your permission,” indeed! Fred was incensed. If Mr. Fling had been a person of his own age, he would have said to him, and very properly, too, “I have no right to lend Dr. Gray’s horse, and you have no right to ask me for him.” But as Mr. Fling was at least a dozen years older than himself, such a speech would have been impertinent; and Fred could only look as forbidding as possible, and preserve a total silence, while Mr. Fling caught up the reins again, and was off and away without further ceremony.

“Isn’t he a funny man?” said Mary. “Funny” was not the word Fred would have used.

CHAPTER III.
THE SPELLING-SCHOOL.

The spelling-school had not yet begun, but Fanny Townsend and her brother Jack had already arrived, and so had Mr. Garland, and his nephew, Mr. Porter. Miss Pike expressed pleasure at seeing them all, and stood at the desk some time with her arm around Mary’s waist, chatting about “old times” at Laurel Grove, at Hilltop, and at Washington. Mary was feeling of late that there were many old times in her life, and that she had lived a long while. She had been quite a traveller, had seen and known a variety of people, but nobody—outside her own family—that is, no grown person,—was so dear to her as this excellent young lady, who was known among strangers as “the homely Miss Pike.” Mary had attended her school at Hilltop with Milly Allen, and afterward Miss Pike had been a governess in Dr. Gray’s family, and still later had spent a winter with the Grays at Washington. She had a decided fancy for Mary; and in return the little girl always called Miss Pike her “favorite friend.” It is only to be wished that every little girl had just such a “favorite friend.”

But it was now time for the exercises to begin. At a tap of the bell everybody was seated. The scholars were nearly all older than Mary, she and Fanny being perhaps the youngest ones there.

“This is an old-fashioned spelling-match,” explained Miss Pike to her visitors, “and we will now announce the names of the two ‘captains,’ Grace Mallon and James Hunnicut. They will take their places.”

Upon this James Hunnicut, a large, intelligent-looking boy of fifteen, walked to one side of the room and stood against the wall, and Grace Mallon, a sensible young girl of fourteen, walked to the other side of the room, and took her place exactly opposite James. They both looked very earnest and alive.

Grace had the first choice; next James; and so on for some minutes. There was breathless interest in it, for, as the best spellers would naturally be chosen first, the whole school sat waiting and hoping. The house was so still that one heard scarcely a sound