“How much will pay them off, and restore your credit?” asked Meg, taking out her purse.

“A quarter would more than do it, and leave a few cents over for a treat for you.  Don’t you like limes?”

“Not much; you may have my share.  Here’s the money:  make it last as long as you can, for it isn’t very plenty, you know.”

“Oh, thank you! it must be so nice to have pocket-money.  I’ll have a grand feast, for I haven’t tasted a lime this week.  I felt delicate about taking any, as I couldn’t return them, and I’m actually suffering for one.”

Next day Amy was rather late at school; but could not resist the temptation of displaying, with pardonable pride, a moist brown-paper parcel before she consigned it to the inmost recesses of her desk.  During the next few minutes the rumor that Amy March had got twenty-four delicious limes (she ate one on the way), and was going to treat, circulated through her “set” and the attentions of her friends became quite overwhelming.  Katy Brown invited her to her next party on the spot; Mary Kingsley insisted on lending her her watch till recess; and Jenny Snow, a satirical young lady who had basely twitted Amy upon her limeless state, promptly buried the hatchet, and offered to furnish answers to certain appalling sums.  But Amy had not forgotten Miss Snow’s cutting remarks about “some persons whose noses were not too flat to smell other people’s limes, and stuck-up people who were not too proud to ask for them”; and she instantly crushed “that Snow girl’s” hopes by the withering telegram, “You needn’t be so polite all of a sudden, for you won’t get any.”

A distinguished personage happened to visit the school that morning, and Amy’s beautifully drawn maps received praise; which honor to her foe rankled in the soul of Miss Snow, and caused Miss March to assume the airs of a studious young peacock.  But, alas, alas! pride goes before a fall, and the revengeful Snow turned the tables with disastrous success.  No sooner had the guest paid the usual stale compliments, and bowed himself out, than Jenny, under pretence of asking an important question, informed Mr. Davis, the teacher, that Amy March had pickled limes in her desk.

Now, Mr. Davis had declared limes a contraband article, and solemnly vowed to publicly ferule the first person who was found breaking the law.  This much-enduring man had succeeded in banishing gum after a long and stormy war, had made a bonfire of the confiscated novels and newspapers, had suppressed a private post-office, had forbidden distortions of the face, nicknames, and caricatures, and done all that one man could do to keep half a hundred rebellious girls in order.  Boys are trying enough to human patience, goodness knows! but girls are infinitely more so, especially to nervous gentlemen with tyrannical tempers, and no more talent for teaching than “Dr. Blimber.”  Mr. Davis knew any quantity of Greek, Latin, algebra, and ologies of all sorts, so he was called a fine