As they walked along the sheriff said,
"Did you notice the horse that Yankee schoolmarm rode?"
"I noticed that it was a very fine one," was the reply.
"I should think it was. I haven't seen a horse in an age that
reminded me so much of the one I was telling you about that Hesden
Le Moyne used to have. He is fuller and heavier, but if I was not
afraid of making Hesden mad I would rig him about a nigger-teacher's
riding his horse around the country. Of course it's not the same,
but it would be a good joke, only Hesden Le Moyne is not exactly
the man one wants to start a joke on."
When they arrived at the school-house they found that Mollie
Ainslie had changed her habit and was now standing by the desk on
the platform in the main room, clad in a neat half-mourning dress,
well adapted to the work of the school-room, quiet and composed,
tapping her bell to reduce to order the many-hued crowd of scholars of
all ages and sizes who were settling into their places preparatory
to the morning roll-call. Nimbus took his visitors up the broad aisle,
through an avenue of staring eyes, and introduced them awkwardly,
but proudly, to the self-collected little figure on the platform.
She in turn presented to them her assistant, Miss Lucy Ellison,
a blushing, peach-cheeked little Northern beauty, and Eliab Hill,
now advanced to the dignity of an assistant also, who sat near her
on the platform.
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