s openly and without rebuke, pinching each
other in sport or malice without the least reserve, and cutting their
autographs in the very legs of his desk. The puzzled dunce, who stood
beside it to say his lesson out of book, looked no longer at the
ceiling for forgotten words, but drew closer to the master's elbow and
boldly cast his eye upon the page; the wag of the little troop squinted
and made grimaces (at the smallest boy of course), holding no book
before his face, and his approving audience knew no constraint in their
delight. If the master did chance to rouse himself and seem alive to
what was going on, the noise subsided for a moment and no eyes met his
but wore a studious and a deeply humble look; but the instant he
relapsed again, it broke out afresh, and ten times louder than before.

Oh! how some of those idle fellows longed to be outside, and how they
looked at the open door and window, as if they half meditated rushing
violently out, plunging into the woods, and being wild boys and savages
from that time forth. What rebellious thoughts of the cool river, and
some shady bathing-place beneath willow trees with branches dipping in
the water, kept tempting and urging that sturdy boy, who, with his
shirt-collar unbuttoned and flung back as far as it could go, sat
fanning his flushed face with a spelling-book, wishing himself a whale,
or a tittlebat, or a fly, or anything but a boy at school on that hot,
broiling day! Heat! ask that other boy, whose seat being nearest to
the door gave him opportunities of gliding out into the garden and
driving his companions to madness by dipping his face into the bucket
of the well and then rolling on the grass--ask him if there were ever
such a day as that, when even the bees were diving deep down into the
cups of flowers and stopping there, as if they had made up their minds
to retire from business and be manufacturers of honey no more. The day
was made for laziness, and lying on one's back in green places, and
staring at the sky till its brightness forced one to shut one's eyes
and go to sleep; and was this a time to be poring over musty books in a
dark room, slighted by the very sun itself? Monstrous!

Nell sat by the window occupied with her work, but attentive still to
all that passed, though sometimes rather timid of the boisterous boys.
The lessons over, writing time began; and there being but one desk and
that the master's, each boy sat at it in turn and labour