e ear, while it gave only pain in the
other, it would require a very profound philosopher to explain. But
the effect was certain. Forester, however, did not speak, but let
Marco roll his pencil down the slate as long as he pleased.

This was not long, however; Marco soon grew tired of it, and then
began to look out the window. There was a little staple in the window
sill, placed there as a means of fastening the blind. Marco pushed the
point of his pencil into this staple, in order to see if it would go
through. It did go through in an instant, and slipping through his
fingers, it fell out of the window.

"Dear me! there goes my pencil. My pencil has dropped out of the
window, cousin Forester; shall I go out and get it?"

"Act according to your own judgment," said Forester. At the same time
he was saying this, he made another mark upon his paper.

"Why, you ought not to count that, cousin Forester," said Marco, "for
I don't know whether you'd wish me to go and get that pencil, or take
another out of my desk."

"Act according to your own judgment," replied Forester.

Marco looked perplexed and troubled. In fact, he was a little
displeased to find that Forester would not answer him. He thought
that, it was an unforeseen emergency, which Forester ought to have
considered an exception to his rule. But he was obliged to decide the
question for himself, and he concluded to go out for his pencil. It
took him some time to find it in the grass, and after he had found it,
he stopped for some time longer, to watch some ants which were passing
in and out, at the entrance to their nest, each one bringing up a
grain of sand in his forceps. When Marco came in, he found that his
hour for arithmetic was so nearly expired, that he should not have
time to finish another sum, if he should begin it; so he put his
arithmetical apparatus away, and took out his writing-book.

Marco went through the whole forenoon pretty much in the same way. He
spent a large part of his time in looking out of the window and about
the room. He went out at the time for the recess, but he stayed out
twenty minutes instead of ten. He was astonished, when he came in, to
see how rapidly the time had passed. He then took down a volume of the
Encyclopedia, and read until twelve o'clock, and then, leaving the
volume of the Encyclopedia and his writing-book on his desk, he told
Forester that the study hours were over, and went away.

The next morning, at nine,