yellow of the young shoots, had demanded no new colours, and were
wonderfully life-like and pretty. There was another border, right round
the top of the room; but that was painted on paper and fastened on. It
was a Bible text--"Keep Innocency, and take heed to the thing that is
right, for that shall bring a man Peace at the last." And Mrs. Wood had
done the text also.

There were no curtains to the broad, mullioned window, which was kept
wide open at every lattice; and one long shoot of ivy that had pushed in
farther than the rest had been seized, and pinned to the wall inside,
where its growth was a subject of study and calculation, during the many
moments when we were "trying to see" how little we could learn of our
lessons. The black-board stood on a polished easel; but the low seats
and desks were of plain pine like the floor, and they were scrupulously
scrubbed. The cool tint of the walls was somewhat cheered by coloured
maps and prints, and the school-mistress's chair (an old carved oak one
that had been much revived by bees-wax and turpentine since the miser's
days) stood on the left-hand side of the window--under "Keep Innocency,"
and looking towards "Peace at the last." I know, for when we were all
writing or something of that sort, so that she could sit still, she used
to sit with her hands folded and look up at it, which was what made Jem
and me think of the old white hen that turned up its eyes; and made
Horace Simpson say that he believed she had done one of the letters
wrong, and could not help looking at it to see if it showed. And by the
school-mistress's chair was the lame boy's sofa. It was the very old
sofa covered with newspapers on which I had read about the murder, when
the lawyer was reading the will. But she had taken off the paper, and
covered it with turkey red, and red cushions, and a quilt of brown
holland and red bordering, to hide his crumpled legs, so that he looked
quite comfortable.