serious aspect,
nodded assent, but whispered reprovingly,----

"'Sh! some one will hear you. The exercises are going to begin."

When Miss Chandler stepped forward to announce the hymn to be sung by
the school as the first exercise, every eye in the room was fixed upon
her, except John's, which saw only Cicely. When the teacher had uttered
a few words, he looked up to her, and from that moment did not take his
eyes off Martha's face.

After the singing, a little girl, dressed in white, crossed by ribbons
of red and blue, recited with much spirit a patriotic poem.

When Martha announced the third exercise, John's face took on a more
than usually animated expression, and there was a perceptible deepening
of the troubled look in his eyes, never entirely absent since Cicely had
found him in the woods.

A little yellow boy, with long curls, and a frightened air, next
ascended the platform.

"Now, Jimmie, be a man, and speak right out," whispered his teacher,
tapping his arm reassuringly with her fan as he passed her.

Jimmie essayed to recite the lines so familiar to a past generation of
schoolchildren:----

"I knew a widow very poor,
Who four small children had;
The eldest was but six years old,
A gentle, modest lad."

He ducked his head hurriedly in a futile attempt at a bow; then,
following instructions previously given him, fixed his eyes upon a large
cardboard motto hanging on the rear wall of the room, which admonished
him in bright red letters to

"ALWAYS SPEAK THE TRUTH,"

and started off with assumed confidence

"I knew a widow very poor,
Who"----

At this point, drawn by an irresistible impulse, his eyes sought the
level of the audience. Ah, fatal blunder! He stammered, but with an
effort raised his eyes and began again:

"I knew a widow very poor,
Who four"----

Again his treacherous eyes fell, and his little remaining
self-possession utterly forsook him. He made one more despairing
effort:----

"I knew a widow very poor,
Who four small"----

and then, bursting into tears, turned and fled amid a murmur of
sympathy.

Jimmie's inglorious retreat was covered by the singing in chorus of "The
Star-spangled Banner," after which Cicely Green came forward to recite
her poem.

"By Jove, Maxwell!" whispered the young officer, who was evidently a
connoisseur of female beauty, "that is n't bad for a bronze Venus. I 'll
tell you"----

"'Sh!" said the other. "