d that I was."

"You will not go through the fourth grade with us?" he said to me. I
answered "No."

Then he did not speak to me for a while, but went on with his drawing.
Then, without raising his head, he inquired:

"And shall you remember your comrades of the third grade?"

"Yes," I told him, "all of them; but you more than all the rest. Who can
forget you?"

He looked at me fixedly and seriously, with a gaze that said a thousand
things, but he said nothing; he only offered me his left hand,
pretending to continue his drawing with the other; and I pressed it
between mine, that strong and loyal hand. At that moment the master
entered hastily, with a red face, and said, in a low, quick voice, with
a joyful intonation:--

"Good, all is going well now, let the rest come forwards; _bravi_, boys!
Courage! I am extremely well satisfied." And, in order to show us his
contentment, and to exhilarate us, as he went out in haste, he made a
motion of stumbling and of catching at the wall, to prevent a fall; he
whom we had never seen laugh! The thing appeared so strange, that,
instead of laughing, all remained stupefied; all smiled, no one laughed.

Well, I do not know,--that act of childish joy caused both pain and
tenderness. All his reward was that moment of cheerfulness,--it was the
compensation for nine months of kindness, patience, and even sorrow! For
that he had toiled so long; for that he had so often gone to give
lessons to a sick boy, poor teacher! That and nothing more was what he
demanded of us, in exchange for so much affection and so much care!

And, now, it seems to me that I shall always see him in the performance
of that act, when I recall him through many years; and when I have
become a man, he will still be alive, and we shall meet, and I will tell
him about that deed which touched my heart; and I will give him a kiss
on his white head.

FAREWELL.

Monday, 10th.

At one o'clock we all assembled once more for the last time at the
school, to hear the results of the examinations, and to take our little
promotion books. The street was thronged with parents, who had even
invaded the big hall, and many had made their way into the class-rooms,
thrusting themselves even to the master's desk: in our room they filled
the entire space between the wall and the front benches. There were
Garrone's father, Derossi's mother, the blacksmith Precossi, Coretti,
Signora Nelli, the vegetable-vender, the father o