gh they
were friends. And, without awaiting a reply:--

"I rejoice with you. Look: he has won the second medal over fifty-four
of his comrades. He has deserved it by his composition, his arithmetic,
everything. He is a boy of great intelligence and good will, who will
accomplish great things; a fine boy, who possesses the affection and
esteem of all. You may feel proud of him, I assure you."

The blacksmith, who had stood there with open mouth listening to him,
stared at the superintendent and the head-master, and then at his son,
who was standing before him with downcast eyes and trembling; and as
though he had remembered and comprehended then, for the first time, all
that he had made the little fellow suffer, and all the goodness, the
heroic constancy, with which the latter had borne it, he displayed in
his countenance a certain stupid wonder, then a sullen remorse, and
finally a sorrowful and impetuous tenderness, and with a rapid gesture
he caught the boy round the head and strained him to his breast. We all
passed before them. I invited him to come to the house on Thursday, with
Garrone and Crossi; others saluted him; one bestowed a caress on him,
another touched his medal, all said something to him; and his father
stared at us in amazement, as he still held his son's head pressed to
his breast, while the boy sobbed.

GOOD RESOLUTIONS.

Sunday, 5th.

That medal given to Precossi has awakened a remorse in me. I have never
earned one yet! For some time past I have not been studying, and I am
discontented with myself, and the teacher, my father and mother are
discontented with me. I no longer experience the pleasure in amusing
myself that I did formerly, when I worked with a will, and then sprang
up from the table and ran to my games full of mirth, as though I had
not played for a month. Neither do I sit down to the table with my
family with the same contentment as of old. I have always a shadow in my
soul, an inward voice, that says to me continually, "It won't do; it
won't do."

In the evening I see a great many boys pass through the square on their
return from work, in the midst of a group of workingmen, weary but
merry. They step briskly along, impatient to reach their homes and
suppers, and they talk loudly, laughing and slapping each other on the
shoulder with hands blackened with coal, or whitened with plaster; and I
reflect that they have been working since daybreak up to this hour. And
with them