Page:Caroline Lockhart--The full of the Moon.djvu/126

 pointed directly at Rosario with his long stick, a silence fell in which the buzzing of the flies upon the window-panes could be distinctly heard.

"Rosario Richards will please recite 7 times 1 are 7," commanded the schoolmaster.

Rosario and the schoolmaster knew what the visitors did not—namely, that Rosario's class had not yet reached "7 times 1 are 7"—that that difficult table was two lessons further on.

But her unexpected splendor had not escaped him, and he knew that he would make no mistake with the families who controlled his reappointment by taking down a peg this little upstart half-breed so radiant in her borrowed finery.

More than once, too, she had argued stoutly against his pronunciation of the English which he was required by law to teach in the school; therefore something of his supreme satisfaction at this rare opportunity to humiliate her before her beloved Americana and Las Rubertas shone in his slits of eyes.

Nan caught the startled look upon