She was very pretty, too. I remember,
too, what a shock it always seemed to mamma when I said, 'Wisi.' I
really never knew her proper name."
"Oh, yes, you did," replied his sister; "because mamma always said
it was perfectly barbarous to change the pretty name of Aloise
into 'Wisi.'"
"I certainly never heard it each time," said Max. "But pray what has
become of this Wisi?"
"You remember she was in my class at school, and we kept along together;
and I often think of how Andrew always befriended and stood up for the
girl through thick and thin, and that she knew well how to turn his
friendship to good account.
"When she came with her slate full of examples, like the rest of us, her
figures were not often correct; but she put the slate, with a merry
laugh, on her desk, and lo! soon the sums were all rightly set down, for
Andrew had put them in order. It often happened that she smashed a pane
in the schoolroom window, or shook down the schoolmaster's plums in the
garden; and yet Andrew was always the one who took the blame of these
misdeeds,--not that anybody accused him, but he himself used to say,
half aloud, that he believed it was his fault that the glass was broken,
or the plums shaken down, and so he got the punishment. We children all
knew well enough who was to blame; but we let it go, we were so used to
it, and were so fond of the merry Wisi, that we all were pleased when
she escaped punishment.
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