y the arm, he thrust
him forward, supporting him as though he had been a sick man. The people
saw, and instantly understood, and several persons ran up with their
fists raised; but Garrone thrust himself between, crying:--

"Do ten men of you set on one boy?"

Then they ceased, and a policeman seized Garoffi by the hand and led
him, pushing aside the crowd as he went, to a pastry-cook's shop, where
the wounded man had been carried. On catching sight of him, I suddenly
recognized him as the old employee who lives on the fourth floor of our
house with his grandnephew. He was stretched out on a chair, with a
handkerchief over his eyes.

"I did not do it intentionally!" sobbed Garoffi, half dead with terror;
"I did not do it intentionally!"

Two or three persons thrust him violently into the shop, crying, "Your
face to the earth! Beg his pardon!" and they threw him to the ground.
But all at once two vigorous arms set him on his feet again, and a
resolute voice said:--

"No, gentlemen!" It was our head-master, who had seen it all. "Since he
has had the courage to present himself," he added, "no one has the right
to humiliate him." All stood silent. "Ask his forgiveness," said the
head-master to Garoffi. Garoffi, bursting into tears, embraced the old
man's knees, and the latter, having felt for the boy's head with his
hand, caressed his hair. Then all said:--

"Go away, boy! go, return home."

And my father drew me out of the crowd, and said to me as we passed
along the street, "Enrico, would you have had the courage, under similar
circumstances, to do your duty,--to go and confess your fault?"

I told him that I should. And he said, "Give me your word, as a lad of
heart and honor, that you would do it." "I give thee my word, father
mine!"

THE MISTRESSES.

Saturday, 17th.

Garoffi was thoroughly terrified to-day, in the expectation of a severe
punishment from the teacher; but the master did not make his appearance;
and as the assistant was also missing, Signora Cromi, the oldest of the
schoolmistresses, came to teach the school; she has two grown-up
children, and she has taught several women to read and write, who now
come to accompany their sons to the Baretti schoolhouse.

She was sad to-day, because one of her sons is ill. No sooner had they
caught sight of her, than they began to make an uproar. But she said, in
a slow and tranquil tone, "Respect my white hair; I am not only a
school-teacher, I am a