Alone in the schoolroom

“Do you love rats?”

I love you

He turned his face away. She bent timidly around till her breath stirred his curls and whispered, “I—love—you!”

The face comes up

By and by she gave up, and let her hands drop; her face, all glowing with the struggle, came up and submitted. Tom kissed the red lips and said:

The big eyes

The big eyes told Tom his blunder and he stopped, confused.

The chiefest jewel

Tom got out his chiefest jewel, a brass knob from the top of an andiron, and passed it around her so that she could see it, and said:

Struck to the floor

She struck it to the floor. Then Tom marched out of the house and over the hills and far away, to return to school no more that day. Presently Becky began to suspect. She ran to the door; he was not in sight; she flew around to the play-yard; he was not there. Then she called:

Come back, Tom

“Tom! Come back, Tom!”

Taking up the cross

She listened intently, but there was no answer. She had no companions but silence and loneliness. So she sat down to cry again and upbraid herself; and by this time the scholars began to gather again, and she had to hide her griefs and still her broken heart and take up the cross of a long, dreary, aching afternoon, with none among the strangers about her to exchange sorrows with.