But in the morning, when she would not let him run out, brought him into the school-room, her kitchen, and began to teach him to write, Gibbie failed to see the good of it.

He must have space, change, adventure, air, or life was not worth the name to him.

Above all he must see friendly faces, and that of the old dame was not such.

But he desired to be friendly with her, and once, as she leaned over him, put up his hand--not a very clean one, I am bound to give her the advantage of my confessing--to stroke her cheek: she pushed him roughly away, rose in indignation upon her crutch, and lifted her cane to chastise him for the insult.

A class of urchins, to Gibbie's eyes at least looking unhappy, were at the moment blundering through the twenty-third psalm.