her,
I thought, that he should take them back again. I remembered that I had
left one of them in my desk at the school-house, and put on my hat to go
after it.

"Going out to spend the evening, teacher?" said Madeline, as I opened the
door of the Ark, giving me at the same time a gay and knowing look.

"No," I said, gravely tolerant of the little woman's surveillance; "I'm
only going to the school-house for a book that I want. I shall be back in
a few moments."

It was hardly dusk then.

Aunt Patty, as usual after school on Friday, had swept the room and put
down the dark and dingy paper curtains.

I opened the door and stood an instant looking into the gloom before
entering. Then I saw that there was some one sitting in my chair--a man
with his head bent forward and buried in his arms, which were folded on
the desk.

It was Mr. Rollin, and before I had time to retreat, he lifted his head
and saw me standing at the door.

I had expected that the first revelation of that glance would contain
something of grief, wretchedness, remorse. The fisherman's countenance
wore a shadow of annoyance, but it was expressive, above all, of a
childish petulance and irritation.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, speaking with the utmost abruptness, and rising from
the chair; "if you had only left this place at the end of the first term,
it would have saved the whole of this abominable misadventure!"

"I don't think I understand you," I said, freezing now in sober earnest.

"Because in your eyes only, it is a misadventure," he continued rapidly,
with growing excitement. "You came to this miserable hole--this
Wallencamp--resolved to view everything in a new light--the light of
unselfish devotion to great ends, and exalted aspiration, and ideal
perfection, and all that. Well, how has the wretched, giggling, conniving
little community shown out in that light? I suppose there's one--that
larking Cradlebow--who has stood the test and come out creditably, by
reason of an uncommonly artistic shock of hair and a Raphaelite
countenance. As for me, taken in the ordinary sense, I'm no worse than a
thousand others, but I say that it was a decidedly unfortunate light to
put me in! It was a decidedly unfair light!"

"I have no wish to judge you in any light," I said, and explaining
briefly my errand to the school-house, I expressed regret at having
interrupted the fisherman's meditations, and turned to go.

"Miss Hungerford!" he exclaimed, with a gest