he top of the highest form of girls.

Her presence made a hush among the elder boys, and such of the young men
as happened to be there that day. For though we had scholars up to the
age of twenty, most of these were at work during the summer and came
only in the winter season--though in the interval betwixt sowing and
hay-harvest and between that again and the ripening of the corn we would
receive stray visits from them, especially in the long wet spells of
weather.

It was at noon and the girls were walking in their playground talking
with linked arms, apart from the noisy sportings of the boys, when I
caught my first glimpse of Uncle Rob. He was standing right opposite the
school in the big door of the Eden Valley Mill. I wondered what he was
doing there, for it was not the season for grinding much corn. Besides,
it would have been handier to send it down and call for it again during
such a busy season on the farm.

So I ran across and asked him what he was doing there. I could hardly
hear his answer, for the loud _plash-plash_ of the buckets of water as
they fell into the great pool underneath the wheel.

I understood him, however, to say that it was open to me to attend to my
own business and leave him to look after his.

In a moment the demon of jealousy entered into my soul. Could it be that
he came there to be near Irma--Irma, whom I had fought for and saved
half-a-dozen times over all by myself--for it is not worth while going
back to what Agnes Anne did, as it were, accidentally. I was so angry at
the mere thought that there and then I charged him with his perfidy. He
laughed a short, contemptuous laugh.

"And what for no," he answered; "at least _I_ have a trade at my
finger-ends. I can drive a plough. I can thresh a mow. At a pinch I can
even shoe a horse. But you--you have quit even the school-mastering!"

I do not know whether or not he said it unwittingly or with intent to
sting me. But at any rate the thrust went home. I could hardly wait till
my father had got through with his work that night, and was stretched in
his easy-chair, his long pipe in one hand and a volume of Martial in the
other. I broke in upon him with the words, "Father, I want to go to
college with Freddie Esquillant!"

My father looked at me in surprise. I can see him still staring at me
bemazed with his pipe half-way to his mouth, and the open book laid face
downward upon his knee.

"Go to college--you?" His surprise was more