ll the boys, and made them dance to his whistle. He could whistle and
sing and warble and tell stories like a wizard. He taught the boys and
girls all sorts of new songs. The first time he sang the verse,--

"Do thy cheeks with gladness tingle
Where the snows and scarlet mingle?"--

Aloys suddenly rose: he seemed taller than usual; he clenched his fists
and gnashed his teeth with secret joy. He seemed to draw Mary Ann
toward him with his looks, and to see her for the first time as she
truly was; for, just as the song ran, so she looked.

The girls sat around in a ring, each having her distaff with the gilt
top before her, to which the hemp was fastened with a colored ribbon;
they moistened the thread with their lips, and twirled the spindle,
which tumbled merrily on the floor. Aloys was always glad to put "a
little moistening," in the shape of some pears or apples, on the table,
and never failed to put the plate near Mary Ann, so that she might help
herself freely.

Early in the winter Aloys took his first courageous step in right of
his adolescence. Mary Ann had received a fine new distaff set with
pewter. The first time she brought it into the spinning-room and sat
down to her work, Aloys came forward, took hold of it, and repeated the
old rhyme:--

"Good lassie, give me leave,
Let me shake your luck out of this sleeve;
Great goodhap and little goodhap
Into my lassie's lap.
Lassie, why are you so rude?
Your distaff is only of wood;
If it had silver or gold on't,
I'd have made a better rhyme on't."

His voice trembled a little, but he got through without stammering.
Mary Ann first cast her eyes down with shame and fear lest he should
"balk;" but now she looked at him with beaming eyes. According to
custom, she dropped the spindle and the whirl,[3] which Aloys picked
up, and exacted for the spindle the promise of a dumpling, and for the
whirl that of a doughnut. But the best came last. Aloys released the
distaff and received as ransom a hearty kiss. He smacked so loud that
it sounded all over the room, and the other boys envied him sorely. He
sat down quietly in a corner, rubbed his hands, and was contented with
himself and with the world. And so he might have remained to the end of
time, if that marplot of a George had not interfered again.

Mary Ann was the first voice in the church-choir. On