not say anything;
he stretched out his hand to bestow a caress upon him, but he did not
dare, and merely stroked his brow with his large fingers. Then he made
his way to the door, and turning round for one last look, he
disappeared.

"Fix what you have just seen firmly in your minds, boys," said the
master; "this is the finest lesson of the year."

MY BROTHER'S SCHOOLMISTRESS.

Thursday, 10th.

The son of the charcoal-man had been a pupil of that schoolmistress
Delcati who had come to see my brother when he was ill, and who had made
us laugh by telling us how, two years ago, the mother of this boy had
brought to her house a big apronful of charcoal, out of gratitude for
her having given the medal to her son; and the poor woman had persisted,
and had not been willing to carry the coal home again, and had wept when
she was obliged to go away with her apron quite full. And she told us,
also, of another good woman, who had brought her a very heavy bunch of
flowers, inside of which there was a little hoard of soldi. We had been
greatly diverted in listening to her, and so my brother had swallowed
his medicine, which he had not been willing to do before. How much
patience is necessary with those boys of the lower first, all toothless,
like old men, who cannot pronounce their r's and s's; and one coughs,
and another has the nosebleed, and another loses his shoes under the
bench, and another bellows because he has pricked himself with his pen,
and another one cries because he has bought copy-book No. 2 instead of
No. 1. Fifty in a class, who know nothing, with those flabby little
hands, and all of them must be taught to write; they carry in their
pockets bits of licorice, buttons, phial corks, pounded brick,--all
sorts of little things, and the teacher has to search them; but they
conceal these objects even in their shoes. And they are not attentive: a
fly enters through the window, and throws them all into confusion; and
in summer they bring grass into school, and horn-bugs, which fly round
in circles or fall into the inkstand, and then streak the copy-books all
over with ink. The schoolmistress has to play mother to all of them, to
help them dress themselves, bandage up their pricked fingers, pick up
their caps when they drop them, watch to see that they do not exchange
coats, and that they do not indulge in cat-calls and shrieks. Poor
schoolmistresses! And then the mothers come to complain: "How comes it,
signorin