, leading a yellow dog, muzzled,
saw her through a crack in a picket fence, not a great way off the road.
Many a year he had been "hangin' 'raoun'" Alminy, and never did he see
any encouraging look, or hear any "Behave, naow!" or "Come, naow, a'n't
ye 'shamed?" or other forbidding phrase of acquiescence, such as village
belles under stand as well as ever did the nymph who fled to the willows
in the eclogue we all remember.

No wonder he was furious, when he saw the school master, who had never
seen the girl until within a week, touching with his lips those rosy
cheeks which he had never dared to approach. But that was all; it was a
sudden impulse; and the master turned away from the young girl, laughing,
and telling her not to fret herself about him,--he would take care of
himself.

So Master Langdon walked on toward his school-house, not displeased,
perhaps, with his little adventure, nor immensely elated by it; for he
was one of the natural class of the sex-subduers, and had had many a
smile without asking, which had been denied to the feeble youth who try
to win favor by pleading their passion in rhyme, and even to the more
formidable approaches of young officers in volunteer companies,
considered by many to be quite irresistible to the fair who have once
beheld them from their windows in the epaulettes and plumes and sashes of
the "Pigwacket Invincibles," or the "Hackmatack Rangers."

Master Langdon took his seat and began the exercises of his school. The
smaller boys recited their lessons well enough, but some of the larger
ones were negligent and surly. He noticed one or two of them looking
toward the door, as if expecting somebody or something in that direction.
At half past nine o'clock, Abner Briggs, Junior, who had not yet shown
himself, made his appearance. He was followed by his "yallah dog,"
without his muzzle, who squatted down very grimly near the door, and gave
a wolfish look round the room, as if he were considering which was the
plumpest boy to begin with. The young butcher, meanwhile, went to his
seat, looking somewhat flushed, except round the lips, which were hardly
as red as common, and set pretty sharply.

"Put out that dog, Abner Briggs!"--The master spoke as the captain speaks
to the helmsman, when there are rocks foaming at the lips, right under
his lee.

Abner Briggs answered as the helmsman answers, when he knows he has a
mutinous crew round him that mean to run the ship on the reef,