It was late and cold, and only these three scholars were outside.

The girls, who were pretty and coquettish, had detained this great boy, who was a man grown.
Jerome went up the long hill under this fire of covert ridicule.
Elmira, behind him, began to cry, holding up one little shawled arm like a wing before her face.

Jerome never lowered his proud head; his unwinking black eyes stared straight ahead at the three; his face was deadly white; his hands twitched at his sides.
The great boy was 'Lisha Robinson; the girls were the pretty twin daughters of a farmer living three miles away, who had just brought them to school on his ox-sled.

Their two sweet, rosy faces, full of pitiless childish merriment for him, and half-unconscious maiden wiles towards the young man at their side, towards whom they leaned involuntarily as they tittered, aroused Jerome to a worse frenzy than 'Lisha's face with its coarse leer.
All three started back a little as he drew near; there was something in his unwinking eyes which was intimidating.

However, 'Lisha had his courage to manifest before these girls.