fancy run riot and evolve visions splendid with happenings for her own
advancement and gladness was not confined to matrimonial day-dreams.
On the morning when she entered the school-house door for the first
time the eyes of her mind saw the curtain which veils the years
divide, and she beheld herself a famous educator, still young, but
long since graduated from primary teaching. She forgot the vision of
her Sir Galahad there. Nor were the circumstances of her several
day-dreams necessarily consistent in other respects. It sufficed for
her spiritual exaltation that they should be merely a fairy-like
manifestation in her own favor. But though she loved to give her
imagination rein, the fairy-like quality of these visions was patent
to Miss Willis, for she possessed a quiet sense of humor as a sort of
east-wind supplementary to the sentimental and poetic properties of
her nature. She had a way of poking fun at herself, which, when
exercised, sent the elfin figures scattering with a celerity
suggestive of the departure of her own pupils at the tinkle of the
bell for dismissal. Then she was left alone with her humor and her New
England conscience, that stern adjuster of real values and enemy of
spiritual dissipation. This same conscience was a vigilant monitor in
the matter of her school-teaching, despite Miss Willis's reasonable
hope that Sir Galahad would claim her soon. The hope would have been
reasonable in the case of any one of her sex, for every woman is said
to be given at least one opportunity to become a wife; but in the case
of Miss Willis nature had been more than commonly bounteous. She was
not a beauty, but she was sweet and fresh-looking, with clear, honest
eyes, and a cheery, gracious manner such as is apt to captivate
discerning men. She was one of those wholesome spirits, earnest and
refined, yet prone to laughter, which do not remain long unmated in
the ordinary course of human experience. But her conscience did not
permit her to dwell on this advantage to the detriment of her