ne person.

But all the boys were in love with the golden-haired grand-daughter.
They went home to talk about her. They went to bed to dream of her.
They read Mary Lamb's stories from Shakespeare, and Hope Wayne was
Ophelia, and Desdemona, and Imogen--above all others, she was Juliet.
They read the "Arabian Nights," and she was all the Arabian Princesses
with unpronounceable names. They read Miss Edgeworth--"Helen,"
"Belinda."--"Oh, thunder!" they cried, and dropped the book to think
of Hope.

Hope Wayne was not unconscious of the adoration she excited. If a swarm
of school-boys can not enter a country church without turning all their
eyes toward one pew, is it not possible that, when a girl comes in and
seats herself in that pew, the very focus of those burning glances, even
Dr. Peewee may not entirely distract her mind, however he may rivet her
eyes? As she takes her last glance at the Sunday toilet in her sunny
dressing-room at home, and half turns to be sure that the collar is
smooth, and that the golden curl nestles precisely as it should under the
moss rose-bud that blushes modestly by the side of a lovelier bloom--is
it not just supposable that she thinks, for a wayward instant, of other
eyes that will presently scan that figure and face, and feels, with a
half-flush, that they will not be shocked nor disappointed?

There was not a boy in Mr. Gray's school who would have dared to dream
that Hope Wayne ever had such a thought. When she appeared behind
Grandfather Burt and the gold-headed cane she had no more antecedents
in their imaginations than a rose or a rainbow. They no more thought
of little human weaknesses and mundane influences in regard to her
than they thought of cold vapor when they looked at sunset clouds.

During the service Hope sat stately in the pew, with her eyes fixed upon
Dr. Peewee. She knew the boys were there. From time to time she observed
that new boys had arrived, and that older ones had left. But how she
discovered it, who could say? There was never one of Mr. Gray's boys who
could honestly declare that he had seen Hope Wayne looking at either of
the pews in which they sat. Perhaps she did not hear what Dr. Peewee
said, although she looked at him so steadily. Perhaps her heart did not
look out of her eyes, but was busy with a hundred sweet fancies in which
some one of those fascinated boys had a larger share than he knew.
Perhaps, when she covered her eyes in an attitude of devotion,