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CHAPTER XI
 Rebecca Kerr had been ill for a few days and did not attend school until the Monday following her arrival in the valley. There she made the acquaintance of Mrs. Wyse, the principal of Tullahanogue Girls' School, and Monica McKeon, the assistant of Tullahanogue Boys' School. Mrs. Wyse was a woman who divided her energies between the education of other women's children and the production of children of her own. Year by year, and with her growing family, had her life narrowed down to the painful confines of its present condition. She had the reputation of being a hard mistress to the children and a harsh superior to her assistants. From the very first she seemed anxious to show her authority over Rebecca Kerr.  
In the forenoon of this day she was standing by her blackboard at the east end of the school, imparting some history to her most advanced class. Rebecca was at the opposite end teaching elementary arithmetic to the younger children when something in the would-be impressive seriousness of her principal's tone caused her to smile openly.
 
Mrs. Wyse saw the smile, and it lit her anger. She called loudly:
 
"Miss Kerr, are you quite sure that that exercise in simple addition is correct?"
 
"Yes, perfectly certain, Mrs. Wyse."
 
[Pg 92]
 
The chalk had slipped upon the greasy blackboard, making a certain 5 to appear as a 6 from the distance at which she stood, and it was into this accidental trap that Mrs. Wyse had fallen. Previous assistants had studied her ways and had given up the mistake of contradicting her even when she was obviously in the wrong. But this was such a straight issue, and Rebecca Kerr had had no opportunity of knowing her. She came down in a flaming temper from the rostrum. Rebecca awaited her near approach with a smiling and assured complacency which must have been maddening. But Mrs. Wyse was not one to admit a mistake. Quick as lightning she struck upon the complaint that the exercise was beyond the course of instruction scheduled for this particular standard.... And here were the foundations of an enmity laid between these two women. They would not be friends in any fine way through the length of all the long days they might teach together.
 
Thus for Rebecca the first day in the valley school dragged out its slow length and was dreary and dreadful until noon. Then Monica McKeon came in from the Boys' School and they took their luncheon together.... They went on chattering away until the door of the schoolroom was suddenly darkened by the shadows of two men. The three women arose in confusion as Master Donnellan called them to the door. There was a young man standing outside who presented a strong contrast to the venerable figure of the master. The latter, in his roundabout, pedagogic way, went on to tell how the stranger had strayed into the school playground and made himself known. He wished to show him the whole of the building, and introduced him as "Mr. Ulick[Pg 93] Shannon, Mr. Myles Shannon's nephew, you know."
 
The three female teachers took an immediate mental note of the young man. They saw him as neat and well-dressed, with a half-thoughtful, half-reckless expression upon his fine face, with its deep-set, romantic eyes. The few words he spoke during the general introduction appeared to Rebecca to be in such a gentle voice. There were some moments of awkward silence. Then, between the five of them, they managed to say a few conventional things. All the while those great, deep eyes seemed to be set upon Rebecca, and she was experiencing the disquieting feeling that she had met him at some previous time in some other place in this wide world. The eyes of Monica McKeon were upon both of them in a way that seemed an attempt to search their minds for their thoughts of the moment.
 
Immediately he was gone Mrs. Wyse and Miss McKeon fell to talking of him:
 
"He's the hateful-looking thing; I'd hate him like poison," said Monica.
 
"Indeed what could he be and the kind of a father he had? Sure I remember him well, a quare character," said Mrs. Wyse.
 
"I wonder what could have brought him around here to-day of all days since he came to Scarden?"
 
This with her eyes set firmly upon Rebecca.
 
Mrs. Wyse was not slow to pick up the insinuation.
 
"Oh, looking after fresh girls always, the same as his father."
 
"He's not bad-looking."
 
"No; but wouldn't you know well he has himself destroyed with the kind of life he lives up in Dublin?[Pg 94] They say he's gone to the bad and that he'll never pass his exams."
 
Every word of th............
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