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Gentle Annie Deane is appointed teacher of a small rural one-teacher school. One student, Billy Bligh, leads the other children into mischief, and Annie Deane falls ill as a result of this insbordination. Billy Bligh is filled with remorse and becomes 'her right hand man'. Annie Deane's health, however, deteriorates and she dies. Billy Bligh is grief-stricken. As an adult, he treasures a photograph sent to him by the dying teacher 'whose gentle nature had changed the whole current of his life'.