My father's Old Smith--Old Bummer Smith--that's what's the matter with him.
Mliss Smith--and I'm coming to school!" "Well ?" said the master.
Accustomed to be thwarted and opposed, often wantonly and cruelly, for no other purpose than to excite the violent impulses of her nature, the master's phlegm evidently took her by surprise.

She stopped; she began to twist a lock of her hair between her fingers; and the rigid line of upper lip, drawn over the wicked little teeth, relaxed and quivered slightly.

Then her eyes dropped, and something like a blush struggled up to her cheek and tried to assert itself through the splashes of redder soil, and the sunburn of years.

Suddenly she threw herself forward, calling on God to strike her dead, and fell quite weak and helpless, with her face on the master's desk, crying and sobbing as if her heart would break.
The master lifted her gently and waited for the paroxysm to pass.

When, with face still averted, she was repeating between her sobs the MEA CULPA of childish penitence--that "she'd be good, she didn't mean to," etc., it came to him to ask her why she had left Sabbath school.
Why had she left the Sabbath school ?--why?
Oh, yes.