ew
intolerable; he sought refuge in his bedroom. There he sat one evening
(it was the third day after the examination), and stared out upon the
gray stone walls which on all sides inclosed the narrow courtyard.
The round stupid face of the moon stood tranquilly dozing like a great
Limburger cheese suspended under the sky.

Ralph, at least, could think of a no more fitting simile. But the
bright-eyed young girl in the window hard by sent a longing look up to
the same moon, and thought of her distant home on the fjords, where the
glaciers stood like hoary giants, and caught the yellow moonbeams on
their glittering shields of snow. She had been reading "Ivanhoe" all the
afternoon, until the twilight had overtaken her quite unaware, and
now she suddenly remembered that she had forgotten to write her German
exercise. She lifted her face and saw a pair of sad, vacant eyes gazing
at her from the next window in the angle of the court She was a little
startled at first, but in the next moment she thought of her German
exercise and took heart.

"Do you know German?" she said; then immediately repented that she had
said it.

"I do," was the answer.

She took up her apron and began to twist it with an air of
embarrassment.

"I didn't mean anything," she whispered, at last. "I only wanted to
know."

"You are very kind."

That answer roused her; he was evidently making sport of her.

"Well, then, if you do, you may write my exercise for me. I have marked
the place in the book."

And she flung her book over to the window, and he caught it on the edge
of the sill, just as it was falling.

"You are a very strange girl," he remarked, turning over the leaves of
the book, although it was too dark to read. "How old are you?"

"I shall be fourteen six weeks before Christmas," answered she, frankly.

"Then I excuse you."

"No, indeed," cried she, vehemently. "You needn't excuse me at all. If
you don't want to write my exercise, you may send the book back again. I
am very sorry I spoke to you, and I shall never do it again."

"But you will not get the book back again without the exercise," replied
he, quietly. "Good-night."

The girl stood long looking after him, hoping that he would return.
Then, with a great burst of repentance, she hid her face in her lap, and
began to cry.

"Oh, dear, I didn't mean to be rude," she sobbed. "But it was Ivanhoe
and Rebecca who upset me."

The next morning she was up before daylight, a