What truth lay underneath his
flourish rested upon the fact that he could not look at her without some
symptoms of the sort he had tersely sketched to his friend; and yet, so
pungent is the fascination of self-inflicted misery, he did look at her,
during periods of study, often for three or four minutes at a stretch.
His expression at such times indeed resembled that of one who has dined
unwisely; but Dora Yocum was always too eagerly busy to notice it. He
was almost never in her eye, but she was continually in his; moreover,
as the banner pupil she was with hourly frequency an exhibit before the
whole class.
Ramsey found her worst of all when her turn came in "Declamation,"
on Friday afternoons. When she ascended the platform, bobbed a little
preliminary bow and began, "Listen, my children, and you shall hear,"
Ramsey included Paul Revere and the Old North Church and the whole
Revolutionary War in his antipathy, since they somehow appeared to
be the property of the Teacher's Pet. For Dora held this post in
"Declamation" as well as in everything else; here, as elsewhere, the
hateful child's prowess surpassed that of all others; and the teacher
always entrusted her with the rendition of the "patriotic selections":
Dora seemed to take fire herself when she declared:
"The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
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