Weakly blue-eyed and spectacled, hooked up primly in chaste drab woollen and capped with white muslin, though scarcely thirty, she stood among her flock and eyed the fierce combatants with an utter lack of command of the situation.

She was a country minister's daughter, and had never taught until her father's death.

This was her first school, and to its turbulent elements she brought only the precisely limited lore of a young woman's seminary of that day, and the experiences of early piety.
Looking at the struggling boys, she thought vaguely of that hymn of Isaac Watts's which treats of barking and biting dogs and the desirability of amity and concord between children, as if it could in some way be applied to heal the breach.

She called again fruitlessly in her thin treble, which had been raised in public only in neighborhood prayer-meetings: "Jerome! Jerome Edwards!" "Will you say it again ?" demanded Jerome of his prostrate adversary, with a sharp prod of a knee.
After a moment of astonished staring there was a burst of mirth among the pupils, especially the older boys.

'Lisha was not a special favorite among them--he was too good-looking, had too much money to spend, and was too much favored by the girls.