To let "school-teacher" into this deal and be obliged
to pay her wages was an undesirable thing to do; yet he reflected that
it might be wise to adopt Nick Thorne's suggestion.
So next morning he drove the liveryman's sorrel mare out to Thompson's
Crossing, where the brick school-house stood on one corner and Will
Thompson's residence on another. A mile away could be seen the spires of
the little church at Hooker's Falls.
McNutt hitched his horse to Thompson's post, walked up the neat pebbled
path and knocked at the door.
"Ethel in?" he asked of the sad-faced woman who, after some delay,
answered his summons.
"She's in the garden, weedin'."
"I'll go 'round," said the agent.
The garden was a bower of roses. Among them stood a slender girl in a
checked gingham, tying vines to a trellis.
"Morn'n', Ethel," said the visitor.
The girl smiled at him. She was not very pretty, because her face was
long and wan, and her nose a bit one-sided. But her golden hair sparkled
in the sun like a mass of spun gold, and the smile was winning in its
unconscious sweetness. Surely, such attractions were enough for a mere
country girl.
Ethel Thompson had, however, another claim to distinction. She had been
"eddicated," as her neighbors acknowledged in awed tones, and "took a
diploma from a college school at Troy.
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