Miss Hyle, the teacher at the head of the table, had
given up her place.
The breakfast was a merry one. After it somebody suggested that they
all go skating on the pond.
Betty hesitated and glanced at Miss Hyle and Miss Thrasher, the two
sad-looking teachers.
She approached them and said, "Won't you come skating, too?"
Miss Thrasher, hardly older than Betty herself, and pretty in a white
frightened way, refused, but almost cheerfully. "I have a Christmas box
to open and Christmas letters to write. Thank you very much."
Betty's heart sank as she saw Miss Hyle's face. "Goodness, she's
coming!"
Miss Hyle was the most unpopular teacher in school. Neither
ill-tempered nor harsh, she was so cold, remote and rigid in face,
voice, and manner that the warmest blooded shivered away from her, the
least sensitive shrank.
"I have no skates, but I should like to borrow a pair to learn, if I
may. I have never tried," she said.
The tragedies of a beginner on skates are to the observers, especially
if such be school-girls, subjects for unalloyed mirth. The nine girls
choked and turned their backs and even giggled aloud as Miss Hyle went
prone, now backward with a whack, now forward in a limp crumple.
But amusement became admiration. Miss Hyle stumbled, fell, laughed
merrily, scrambled up, struck out, and skated.
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