Betsy Dan's look was too much for the little chap's gravity.
A roar swept over the school-house.

Even the grim dominie's face relaxed.
"Go to your seat and behave yourself," said the master, giving Jimmie a slight cuff.

"Now, Margaret, let us go on." Margaret's was the difficult verse.

But to Margaret's quiet voice and gentle heart, anything like shriek or battle-cry was foreign enough, so with even tone, and unmodulated by any shade of passion, she read the cry, "To arms! They come! The Greek! The Greek!" Nor was her voice to be moved from its gentle, monotonous flow even by the battle-cry of Bozzaris, "Strike! till the last armed foe expires!" "Next," said the dominie, glad to get on with his task.
The master breathed freely, when, alas for his hopes, the minister spoke up.
"But, Margaret, do you think Bozzaris cheered his men in so gentle a voice as that ?" Margaret smiled sweetly, but remained silent, glad to get over the verse.
"Wouldn't you like to try it again ?" suggested the minister.
Margaret flushed up at once.
"Oh, no," said his wife, who had noticed Margaret's flushing face.
"Girls are not supposed to be soldiers, are they, Margaret ?" Margaret flashed a grateful look at her.
"That's a boy's verse." "Ay! that it is," said the old dominie; "and I would wish very much that Mrs.Murray would conduct this class." But the minister's wife would not hear of it, protesting that the dominie could do it much better.

The old man, however, insisted, saying that he had no great liking for this part of the examination, and would wish to reserve himself, with the master's permission, for the "arith-MET-ic" class.
Mrs.Murray, seeing that it would please the dominie, took the book, with a spot of color coming in her delicate, high-bred face.
"You must all do your best now, to help me," she said, with a smile that brought an answering smile flashing along the line.