“We’d better go now and give Mr. Bills a chance,” he said to Howard, who had been comparatively silent and let him do the talking and suggesting.

Howard could not define his feeling with regard to Eloise.  Her beauty impressed him greatly, and he was very sorry for her, but he could not rid himself of the conviction which had a second time taken possession of him that in some way she was to influence his life or cross his path.

He bade her good-by, and told her to keep up good courage, and felt a little piqued that she withdrew her hand more quickly from him than she did from Jack, who left her rather reluctantly.  They found Mr. Bills outside talking to Mrs. Biggs, who was volubly narrating the particulars of the accident, so far as she knew them, and referring constantly to her own sprained ankle of twenty years ago, and the impossibility of Miss Smith’s being able to walk for some time.

With his usual impetuousness Jack took the initiative, and said to Mr. Bills:  “Your school can certainly wait; it must wait.  A week or two can make no difference.  At the end of that time, if she cannot walk, she can be taken to and from the school-house every day.  To lose the school will go hard with her, and she’s so young.”

Jack was quite eloquent, and Mr. Bills looked at him curiously, wondering who this smart young fellow was, pleading for the new school-teacher.  He knew Howard, who, after Jack was through, said he hoped Mr. Bills would wait; it would be a pity to disappoint the girl when she had come so far.

“Perhaps a week or two will make no difference,” Mr. Bills said, “though the young ones are getting pretty wild, and their mothers anxious to have them out of the way, but I guess we’ll manage it somehow.”

He knew he should manage it when he saw Eloise.  She could not tell him of the need there was of money in her grandmother’s home, or the still greater need if she took the trip to California which she feared she must take.  She only looked her anxiety, and Mr. Bills, whose heart Mrs. Biggs said was “big as a barn,” warmed toward her, while mentally he began to doubt her ability to “fill the bill,” as he put it, she looked so young and so small.

“I’ll let her off easy, if I have to,” he thought, and he said, “Folks’ll want school to begin as advertised.  You can’t go, but there’s Ruby Ann Patrick.  She’ll be glad to supply.  She’s kep’ the school five years runnin’.  She wanted it when we hired you.  She’s out of a job, and will be glad to take it till you can walk.  I’ll see her to-day.  You look young to manage unruly boys, and there’s a pile of ’em in Deestrick No. 5 want lickin’ half the time.  Ruby Ann can lick ’em.  She’s five feet nine.  You ain’t more’n five.”

Eloise did not tell him how tall she was.  In fact, she didn’t know.  She must look very diminutive in Mr. Bills’s eyes, she thought, and hastened to say, “I taught boys and young men older than I am in the normal at Mayville, and never had any trouble.  I had only to speak to or look at them.”