d. "Alf, to teach you shall be
one of my duties. But don't put yourself down as ignorant, for you are
not."

He grasped my hand, and, looking straight into my eyes, said: "I wish I
knew as much and was as good-looking as you. Then I wouldn't be afraid
to go to her and ask her to let me win her love, if I could. To-morrow
you go over to the General's, pretending that you want to get his advice
about the school, and I will go with you. Hang it, Bill, you may be in
love one of these days."

"Why, Alf, I don't see why either of us should be afraid to go to the
General's house. Go? Of course, we will. But you make me laugh when you
say that if you were only as good-looking as I am. Let me tell you
something." I briefly told him the uneventful story of my life, that
ridicule had found me while yet I was a toddler and had held me up as
its target. "You might have grown too fast," he remarked when I had
concluded, "but you have caught up with yourself. To tell you the truth,
you would be picked out from among a thousand men. Where did you get all
those books? I don't see how you brought them with you in that trunk,
and with your other things."

"The other things didn't take up much room," I answered, and, turning
to the books, I began to tell him something about them, but I soon saw
that his mind was far away. "Yes, we will go over there to-morrow," said
I, and his mind flew back.

"And walk right in as if we owned half the earth," said he, but I knew
that he felt not this lordly courage, knew that already he was quaking.
"Oh, I'll go right in with you," he said. "You lead the way and I'll be
with you."

When I had gone to bed a remark that he had made was sweeping like a
wind through my mind: "Hang it, Bill, you may be in love one of these
days." I was already in love--in love with Guinea.

CHAPTER V.

Alf was still asleep when I arose from my bed the next morning. I stood
at the head of the stairs and looked back at his handsome, though
sun-browned face, and I felt a strange and strong sympathy for him, but
I had not begun to agonize in my love; it was so new that I was dazzled.
When I went down stairs Guinea was feeding the chickens from the kitchen
window, and the old man was walking about the yard, with his slouch hat
pulled down to shut out the slanting glare of the sun. But he saw me
and, calling me, said that he would now show me his beauties. And just
then I heard Guinea's voice: "If he starts to make