minds
day by day, of feeling the persons whom they have loved the most die out
of their memories. One of these boys said to me one day, with
inexpressible sadness, 'I should like to have my sight again, only for a
moment, in order to see mamma's face once more, for I no longer
remember it!' And when their mothers come to see them, the boys place
their hands on her face; they feel her over thoroughly from brow to
chin, and her ears, to see how they are made, and they can hardly
persuade themselves that they cannot see her, and they call her by name
many times, to beseech her that she will allow them, that she will make
them see her just once. How many, even hard-hearted men, go away in
tears! And when you do go out, your case seems to you to be the
exception, and the power to see people, houses, and the sky a hardly
deserved privilege. Oh! there is not one of you, I am sure, who, on
emerging thence, would not feel disposed to deprive himself of a portion
of his own sight, in order to bestow a gleam at least upon all those
poor children, for whom the sun has no light, for whom a mother has no
face!"

THE SICK MASTER.

Saturday, 25th.

Yesterday afternoon, on coming out of school, I went to pay a visit to
my sick master. He made himself ill by overworking. Five hours of
teaching a day, then an hour of gymnastics, then two hours more of
evening school, which is equivalent to saying but little sleep, getting
his food by snatches, and working breathlessly from morning till night.
He has ruined his health. That is what my mother says. My mother was
waiting for me at the big door; I came out alone, and on the stairs I
met the teacher with the black beard--Coatti,--the one who frightens
every one and punishes no one. He stared at me with wide-open eyes, and
made his voice like that of a lion, in jest, but without laughing. I
was still laughing when I pulled the bell on the fourth floor; but I
ceased very suddenly when the servant let me into a wretched,
half-lighted room, where my teacher was in bed. He was lying in a little
iron bed. His beard was long. He put one hand to his brow in order to
see better, and exclaimed in his affectionate voice:--

"Oh, Enrico!"

I approached the bed; he laid one hand on my shoulder and said:--

"Good, my boy. You have done well to come and see your poor teacher. I
am reduced to a sad state, as you see, my dear Enrico. And how fares the
school? How are your comrades getting along?