rk and slender and gentle. She had none
of her father's bigness or bumptiousness. Her eyes were large and of a
shade that was neither black nor brown. Her hair was very decidedly
black. Her face was small, and round with the plumpness of youth, but
one instinctively felt, in looking at it, that its lines might easily
fall into thinness, even pitifulness, at the first touch of woman's
sorrow. She was not, nor did she look to be, a strong girl. But her very
weakness was the source of secret delight to the boy, for it made him
feel her dependence on him. When they were together and some girlish
fear made her cling to his arm, his heart swelled with pride and a
something else that he could not understand and could not have
described. Had any one told him that he was going through the
half-sweet, half-painful, timid, but gallant first stages of love, he
would have resented the imputation with blushes. His whole training
would have made him think of such a thing with terror. He had learned
never to speak of girls at home, for any reference to them by him was
sure to bring forth from Miss Prime an instant and strong rebuke.

"Freddie," was the exclamation that gave his first unsuspecting remarks
pause, "you 're a-gittin' too fresh: you 'd better be a-mindin' of yore
studies, instead o' thinkin' about girls. Girls ain't a-goin' to make
you pass yore examination, an', besides, you 're a-gettin' mannish; fur
boys o' yore age to be a-talkin' about girls is mannish, do you hear,
sir? You 're a-beginnin' to feel yore keepin' too strong. Don't let me
hear no more sich talk out o' you."

There never was a manly boy in the world whom the word "mannish," when
applied to him, did not crush. It is a horrid word, nasty and full of
ugly import. Fred was subdued by it, and so kept silence about his
female friends. Happy is the boy who dares at home to pour out his
heart about the girls he knows and likes, and thrice unhappy he who
through mistaken zeal on the part of misguided parents is compelled to
keep his thoughts in his heart and brood upon his little aproned
companions as upon a secret sin. Two things are thereby engendered,
stealth and unhealth. If Fred escaped certain youthful pitfalls, it was
because he was so repressed that he had learned to hide himself from
himself, his thoughts from the mind that produced them.

He was a boy strong and full of blood. The very discipline that had
given a gloomy cast to his mind had given streng