rness of
womanhood--a subtle change of expression that made her all the more dear
to me. Every day, rain or shine, the old doctor had come to visit his
patient, sometimes sitting an hour and gazing thoughtfully in his face,
occasionally asking a question, or telling a quaint anecdote. And then
came the end.

The sky was cold and grey in the late autumn and the leaves were drifted
deep in the edge of the woodlands when Hope and I went away to school
together at Hillsborough. Uncle Eb drove us to our boarding place in
town. When we bade him goodbye and saw him driving away, alone in the
wagon, we hardly dared look at each other for the tears in our eyes.

David Brower had taken board for us at the house of one Solomon
Rollin--universally known as 'Cooky' Rollin; that was one of the first
things I learned at the Academy. It seemed that many years ago he had
taken his girl to a dance and offered her, in lieu of supper, cookies
that he had thoughtfully brought with him. Thus cheaply he had come to
life-long distinction.

'You know Rollin's Ancient History, don't you?' the young man asked who
sat with me at school that first day.

'Have it at home,' I answered, 'It's in five volumes.'

'I mean the history of Sol Rollin, the man you are boarding with,' said
he smiling at me and then he told the story of the cookies.

The principal of the Hillsborough Academy was a big, brawny bachelor of
Scotch descent, with a stem face and cold, grey, glaring eyes. When he
stood towering above us on his platform in the main room of the building
where I sat, there was an alertness in his figure, and a look of
responsibility in his face, that reminded me of the pictures of Napoleon
at Waterloo. He always carried a stout ruler that had blistered a shank
of every mischievous boy in school. As he stood by the line, that came
marching into prayers every morning he would frequently pull out a boy,
administer a loud whack or two, shake him violently and force him into a
seat. The day I began my studies at the Academy I saw him put two dents
in the wall with the heels of a young man who had failed in his algebra.
To a bashful and sensitive youth, just out of a country home, the sight
of such violence was appalling. My first talk with him, however, renewed
my courage. He had heard I was a good scholar and talked with me in a
friendly way about my plans. Both Hope and I were under him in
algebra and Latin. I well remember my first error in his cla