wrap up the train in a handkerchief,
and as he bent over, he made the things with which his pockets were
filled rattle.

"Some day," said Precossi to me, "you shall come to the shop to see my
father at work. I will give you some nails."

My mother put a little bunch of flowers into Garrone's buttonhole, for
him to carry to his mother in her name. Garrone said, "Thanks," in his
big voice, without raising his chin from his breast. But all his kind
and noble soul shone in his eyes.

PRIDE.

Saturday, 11th.

The idea of Carlo Nobis rubbing off his sleeve affectedly, when Precossi
touches him in passing! That fellow is pride incarnate because his
father is a rich man. But Derossi's father is rich too. He would like to
have a bench to himself; he is afraid that the rest will soil it; he
looks down on everybody and always has a scornful smile on his lips: woe
to him who stumbles over his foot, when we go out in files two by two!
For a mere trifle he flings an insulting word in your face, or a threat
to get his father to come to the school. It is true that his father did
give him a good lesson when he called the little son of the charcoal-man
a ragamuffin. I have never seen so disagreeable a schoolboy! No one
speaks to him, no one says good by to him when he goes out; there is not
even a dog who would give him a suggestion when he does not know his
lesson. And he cannot endure any one, and he pretends to despise Derossi
more than all, because he is the head boy; and Garrone, because he is
beloved by all. But Derossi pays no attention to him when he is by; and
when the boys tell Garrone that Nobis has been speaking ill of him, he
says:--

"His pride is so senseless that it does not deserve even my passing
notice."

But Coretti said to him one day, when he was smiling disdainfully at his
catskin cap:--

"Go to Derossi for a while, and learn how to play the gentleman!"

Yesterday he complained to the master, because the Calabrian touched his
leg with his foot. The master asked the Calabrian:--

"Did you do it intentionally?"--"No, sir," he replied, frankly.--"You
are too petulant, Nobis."

And Nobis retorted, in his airy way, "I shall tell my father about it."
Then the teacher got angry.

"Your father will tell you that you are in the wrong, as he has on other
occasions. And besides that, it is the teacher alone who has the right
to judge and punish in school." Then he added pleasantly:--

"Come, Nobis, ch