selves at
their desks, and took up their interrupted lessons with a docility at
which Hester wondered, since for the moment she herself had lost all power
to interest or amuse them.

For her that was a dreadful hour. A couple of humble-bees zoomed against
the window pane, and the sound, with the ticking of the schoolroom clock,
took possession of her brain. Z-zoom! Tick-tack, tick-tack!
Would lesson-time never come to an end? She went about automatically
correcting sums, copies, exercises, because the sight of the pencilled
words or figures steadied her faculties, whereas she felt that if she
called the children up in class her wits would wander and all answers come
alike to her, right or wrong. Her will, too, had fallen into a strange
drowsiness. She wanted the window open, to get rid of the humble-bees;
a word to one of the elder boys and it would be done. Yet the minutes
passed and the word remained unspoken. So a sick man will lie and debate
with himself so small a thing as the lifting of a hand.

At length the clock hands pointed to five minutes to noon. She ordered
books to be shut and slates to be put away; and going to the harmonium,
gave out the hymn, "Lord, dismiss us with Thy blessing." The Managers had
agreed upon this hymn; the Nonconformist majority insisting, however, that
the concluding 'Amen' should be omitted. Omitted accordingly it was on
the slips of paper printed for school use.

"Lord, dismiss us with Thy blessing,
Thanks for mercies past receive;
Pardon all their faults confessing;
Time that's lost may all retrieve;
May Thy children
Ne'er again Thy Spirit grieve."

The children, released from the dull strain of watching the clock, sang
with spirit. Hester played on, inattentive to the words. At the end,
without considering what she did, she pressed down the chords of the
'Amen,' and the singers joined in, all unaware of transgressing.

In the silence that followed she suddenly remembered her instructions to
omit the word, and sat for a moment flushed and confused. But the deed
was done. The children stood shuffling their feet, awaiting the signal of
dismissal.

"You may go," she said. "We will do better to-morrow."

When their voices had died away down the road she closed the harmonium
softly, and fell to walking to and fro, musing, tidying up the schoolroom
by fits and starts. She wanted to sit down and have a good cry; but
a