."]

Miss Amanda meant to be funny. Emily Louise, for one, looked stonily
ahead; not for anything would she smile.

But the weekly recitation varied, and there came a week when the classes
were assembled for a lesson in composition.

Mr. Page laughed at what he called flowery effusions. "Use the matter
and life about you," he said.

"There is one boy," he went on to state, "whose compositions are
generally good for that reason. William, step up, sir, and let us hear
what you have made of this."

William arose. He was still square, but he was no longer short; there
was a straight and handsome bridge building to his nose, and he had
taken to tall collars. William's face was somewhat suffused at this
summons to publicity, but his smile was cheerful and unabashed. His
composition was on "Conscience." So were the compositions of the others;
but his was different.

"A boy has one kind of a conscience," read William, "and a girl has
another kind. Two girls met a cow. 'Look her right in the face and
pretend like we aren't afraid,' said the biggest girl; but the littlest
girl had a conscience. 'Won't it be deceiving the cow?' she wanted to
know."

Emily Louise blushed; how could William! For Emily Louise was "the
littlest girl;" Hattie was the other, and William had come along and
driven the cow away.

William was still reading: "There was a girl found a quarter in the
snow. She thought how it would buy five pies, or ten doughnuts, or
fifteen pickles, and then she thought about the person who would come
back and find the place in the snow and no quarter, and so she went and
put the quarter back."

How could William! Mr. Page, his hair wildly rumpled, was clapping hand
to knee; even the teachers were trying not to smile. Emily Louise
blushed hotter, for Emily Louise, taking the quarter back, had met
William.

"Boys are different," stated William's composition. "There was a boy
went to the office to be whipped. The strap hit a stone in his pocket.
So the Principal, who went around on Saturdays with a hammer tapping
rocks, let the boy off. He didn't know the boy got the rock out the
alley on purpose. But I reckon boys have some kind of a conscience. That
boy felt sort of mean."

It was the teachers who were laughing now, while Mr. Page, running his
fingers through his hair, wore a smile--arrested, reflective,
considering. But it broadened; there are Principals, here and there, who
can appreciate a William.

The ch