eir summer coats were off, their belts loosened. They watched
with eyes half closed the long water-weeds moving gently as the current
waved and twined them. The black gelding, brought along a farm road and
through a gate, waited at its ease in the field beside a stone wall.
Now and then it stretched and cropped a young leaf from a vine that grew
over the wall, and now and then the want wind brought down the fruit
blossoms all over the meadow. They fell from the tree where Bertie and
Billy lay, and the boys brushed them from their faces. Not very far away
was Blue Hill, softly shining; and crows high up in the air came from it
occasionally across here.

By one o'clock a change had come in Billy's room. Oscar during that hour
had opened his satchel of philosophy upon his lap and read his notes
attentively. Being almost word perfect in many parts of them, he now
spent his unexpected leisure in acquiring accurately the language of
still further paragraphs. "The sharp line of demarcation which Descartes
drew between consciousness and the material world," whispered Oscar with
satisfaction, and knew that if Descartes were on the examination paper
he could start with this and go on for nearly twenty lines before
he would have to use any words of his own. As he memorized, the
chambermaid, who had come to do the bedrooms three times already and had
gone away again, now returned and no longer restrained her indignation.
"Get up Mr. Blake!" she vociferated to the sleeping John; "you ought to
be ashamed!" And she shook the bedstead. Thus John had come to rise and
discover Oscar. The patient tutor explained himself as John listened in
his pyjamas.

"Why, I'm sorry," said he, "but I don't believe they'll get back very
soon."

"They have gone away?" asked Oscar, sharply.

"Ah--yes," returned the reticent John. "An unexpected matter of
importance."

"But, my dear sir, those gentlemen know nothing! Philosophy 4 is
tomorrow, and they know nothing."

"They'll have to stand it, then," said John, with a grin.

"And my time. I am waiting here. I am engaged to teach them. I have been
waiting here since ten. They engaged me all day and this evening.

"I don't believe there's the slightest use in your waiting now, you
know. They'll probably let you know when they come back."

"Probably! But they have engaged my time. The girl knows I was here
ready at ten. I call you to witness that you found me waiting, ready at
any time."

John in