clusion that you write much better than I do myself, so it seems rather useless for me to set you any more head-lines. I could not help thinking what silly mottoes and adages the pupils are made to transcribe. Just notice the inanity of the page you have been doing. 'Many men of many minds, many birds of many kinds.' Could anything be more futile! Now, as the next page begins with N, I have picked out a line for you, and I am going to ask you to write it yourself."
The girl laughed, and sat in his chair, taking his pen in her hand and placing the copy-book before her. Copford turned the pages of a small volume which lay open on his desk, and read the line:
"‘Never idle a moment, but thrifty and thoughtful of others.’"
"That is a beautiful line," she said, as she finished writing it.
"Yes," he answered, "and it looks more beautiful now that your pen has traced it. Do you know to whom it refers?"
'No, I never heard it before," she said, gently shaking her head.
"Then listen to the lines that go with it:
"‘Truly, Priscilla,' he said, 'when I see you spinning and spinning,
Never idle a moment but thrifty and thoughtful of others,
Suddenly you are transformed or visibly changed in a moment;
No longer Priscilla, but Bertha the Beautiful Spinner.'
"Which I will amend by calling you Priscilla the beautiful writer."
"It is Longfellow, is it not?" she asked. "There is a part of 'Evangeline' in our text-book, and it reads like that."
"Yes, this is one of Longfellow's poems, and the one I like most of all. I wish you would let me give you this book for you to keep in remembrance of the time you warned me. Here, I shall write on the fly-leaf:
"‘Priscilla, thoughtful of others.’"
"Oh, I must go," she cried, a tumult rising in her heart, but she took the book and hurriedly thanked him.
He held her hand for a moment, his whole impulse being to draw her toward him and treat her as he had treated her copy-book, but he had mercy on her diffident modesty and restrained his impulse, hoping selfishly that a future reward would wait on his self-restraint, which it undoubtedly did; but with that we have nothing to do, for this story does not extend to the courtship and marriage of Russell Copford and Priscilla Willard; it deals with war, and not with love.
Next day Copford announced in the school that he would postpone the arithmetic class until the morrow, and would give them a lesson in drawing instead, This proclamation did not appear to gratify Tom Monro, although it filled the rest of the school with delight. Tom had prepared himself for the sequel to the inevitable grindstone question, and he did not care to have the contest postponed; so he sat sullenly in his place, paying no attention to the brilliant art display which the teacher exhibited on the blackboard by means of various colored chalk crayons,
When school was dismissed at four o'clock, Copford said to Tom Monro: "I want you to wait until the others have gone."
"What for?" asked Tom, gruffly.
"I have something to show you," replied the master.
"I don't know that I care about seeing it," said Tom, rudely. "I get enough schoolmastering from nine till four. I've got other things to do after school's out. If you think I'm interested in drawing, you're mistaken."
"I can see that you are not interested in drawing," said Copford, mildly, "and I am not going to speak to you about it; so you need have no fears on that score. The fact is, Tom, I want you to do me a favor. I haven't had any exercise since I came to this place, and I want to limber up a little, if I may put it that way. There, now, the last lingerer has gone, and we are alone."
Copford opened his desk and drew from the inside two pairs of boxing-gloves, which, closing the desk, he placed upon the lid.
"Have you ever seen wearing apparel of that nature before?" he inquired,
"No," said Tom, interested in spite of himself. "What are they for?"
"They are boxing-gloves. I am very fond of boxing, and used to be rather good at it, so it struck me you might oblige me by giving me the chance of a little exercise. I should say from your build that you ought to make a fair fighter, if you know how to use your strength."
Tom's eyes lit up with the flame of lust of combat.
"Nobody that ever stood up to me ever any complaint to make that I didn't know how to fight," he said. "But I fight with my fists; I don't see the use of them things."
