These were the first hopeful words Eloise had heard, and her heart warmed towards this great blond woman, who was proving herself a friend, and who began to tell her of the school and her own experience as teacher in District No. 5, which, she said, was the largest and most important district in town, with the oldest scholars both summer and winter.  “There are some unruly boys, especially Tom Walker, but I am so big and strong that I conquered him by brute force, and had no trouble after one battle.  You will conquer some other way.  Tom is very susceptible to good looks,—­calls me a hayseed, and a chestnut, and a muff.  It will be different with you,” and Ruby pressed the hand she was holding.  Then she spoke of Col.  Crompton, who used to examine the teachers, and before whom she had been five times; usually answering the same questions, especially those contained in the “Formula,” and to which Eloise would not be subjected.

“What is the Formula?” Eloise asked, and Ruby told her, while Eloise listened bewildered, and glad that she was to escape an ordeal she could never pass with credit.

It was easy to be confiding with Ruby, and Eloise soon found herself talking freely of her life and school days in Mayville, and the necessity there was for her to teach, and the bitter disappointment it would be to lose the school on which so much depended.

“My father is dead,” she said, “and my mother is—­” she hesitated, while a deep flush came to her cheeks, “she is an invalid, and there is no one to care for her now but me.  She is in California, and I may have to go for her, and must have the money.”

Just for a moment, when Mr. Bills asked her to take Eloise’s place, there had been in Ruby’s mind a half-formed hope that she might be wholly reinstated in her old place as a teacher.  But it was gone now, and Jack Harcourt himself was not more kindly disposed to the helpless girl than she was.

“You shall not lose the school, nor the time either,” she said impulsively.  “I am to take it till you are able, and then I shall step out.  In the mean time, I shall do all I can for you,—­shall enlist Tom Walker on your side, and you will have no trouble.”

She arose to go, then sat down again and said, “I hope you will be able to attend our Rummage Sale.”

“Rummage Sale!” Eloise repeated, remembering to have heard the word in connection with the slippers Miss Amy had sent her.  “I don’t think I quite understand.”

“Don’t you know what a Rummage Sale is?” Ruby Ann asked, explaining what it was, and saying they were to have one in a vacant house not far from Mrs. Biggs’s, the proceeds to go for a free library for District No. 5.  “I am one of the solicitors,” she continued, “but as you are a stranger you may not have anything to contribute.”

As Rummage Sales were just beginning to dawn on the public horizon Eloise had never heard of them, but she became interested at once, because Ruby Ann was so enthusiastic, and said, “I have two or three white aprons I made myself.  You can have one of them if you think anybody will buy it.”