Once he looked in some wonder at the school-teacher as much as to say, "Why did you permit this ?" and the young man pulled his mustache harder.
When Ellen finished and made her bow, such a storm of applause arose as had never before been heard at a high-school exhibition.

The audience was for the most part composed of factory employes and their families, as most of the graduates were of that class of the community.

Many of them were of foreign blood, people who had come to the country expecting the state of things advocated in Ellen's valedictory, and had remained more or less sullen and dissenting at the non-fulfilment of their expectation.

One tall Swede, with a lurid flashing of blue eyes under a thick, blond thatch, led the renewed charges of applause.

Red spots came on his cheeks, gaunt with high cheekbones; his cold Northern blood was up.