s, maps, lockers, cubicles, gravel soil, diet unlimited, and
special attention to backward pupils. Simultaneously, he saw how mean
had been his motive for repudiating the gift. What more despicable than
jealousy of a man deceased? What sillier than to cast pearls before
executors? Sped by nothing but the pulse of his hot youth, he had wooed
and won this girl. Why flinch from her unsought dowry?

He told her his vision. Her eyes opened wide to it. "And oh," she cried,
"then we can be married as soon as you take your degree!"

He bade her not be so foolish. Who ever heard of a head-master aged
three-and-twenty? What parent or guardian would trust a stripling? The
engagement must run its course. "And," he said, fidgeting, "do you know
that I have hardly done any reading to-day?"

"You want to read NOW--TO-NIGHT?"

"I must put in a good two hours. Where are the books that were on my
table?"

Reverently--he was indeed a king of men--she took the books down from
the shelf, and placed them where she had found them. And she knew not
which thrilled her the more--the kiss he gave her at parting, or the
tone in which he told her that the one thing he could not and would not
stand was having his books disturbed.

Still less than before attuned to the lugubrious session downstairs, she
went straight up to her attic, and did a little dance there in the
dark. She threw open the lattice of the dormer-window, and leaned out,
smiling, throbbing.

The Emperors, gazing up, saw her happy, and wondered; saw Noaks' ring on
her finger, and would fain have shaken their grey heads.

Presently she was aware of a protrusion from the window beneath hers.
The head of her beloved! Fondly she watched it, wished she could reach
down to stroke it. She loved him for having, after all, left his books.
It was sweet to be his excuse. Should she call softly to him? No, it
might shame him to be caught truant. He had already chidden her for
prying. So she did but gaze down on his head silently, wondering whether
in eighteen years it would be bald, wondering whether her own hair would
still have the fault of being golden. Most of all, she wondered whether
he loved her half so much as she loved him.

This happened to be precisely what he himself was wondering. Not that
he wished himself free. He was one of those in whom the will does not,
except under very great pressure, oppose the conscience. What pressure
here? Miss Batch was a superior girl; she wo