ounted ten, before saying in a low,
constrained voice,--"Ceylon!"

The deposed pupil sank to the middle of the class before the recitation
was over, much to the bewilderment of the single-minded teacher. By the
morrow she was at the bottom of the line and so far across the outer
confines of Coventry that she never got back. That was our way of
looking at "cribs" half a century ago.

It is not ten years since I met the banished scholar in a metropolitan
reception-room, and a few minutes afterward, another old schoolfellow,
who said in one and the same breath, "Do you know that Mary Morgan is
here?" and, "I suppose it is uncharitable, but I can never forget that
she used to cheat in her recitations at Mrs. Nunham's."

We went home "for Christmas." My father sent the carriage for us. The
roomy family coach he never allowed to get shabby. The "squabs," _i.e._
padded inner curtains to exclude the cold in winter, were in, and there
were thick shawls and a pillow apiece and two footstoves for our comfort
in the thirty-mile drive, and upon the front seat, gorgeous in a new
shawl of many and daring colors, her snowy turban wound about head and
ears, was Mam' Chloe, the comfortablest thing there. Hamilcar, the
carriage-driver, (we did not say "coachman") had on his Christmas suit,
including a shaggy overcoat for which his master had given him an order
upon a Richmond tailor, and was spruce exceedingly. To ensure our
perfect safety and respectability we had an outrider in the shape of
Mr. James Ireton, a young fellow-countryman, who was returning from a
business trip to town.

The boxes under the seats--an old-fashioned convenience, capable of
containing a gentleman's entire wardrobe and half of a lady's--were
brimful of Christmas gifts and "goodies," and parcels stuffed with the
same wedged Mam' Chloe in the exact middle of the front seat. A big
hair-trunk was strapped upon the rack behind, and a box packed by Cousin
Molly Belle was between Hamilcar's feet.

It began to snow before we had left the city a mile behind us, but that
made things all the merrier. How we chuckled with laughter as the fast
flakes stuck upon Mr. Ireton's hat and overcoat and leggings, until he
looked like a polar bear but for his face that got redder as the rest of
his body whitened, until, with his shining teeth and powdered hair, he
made us think of Santa Claus. When we let down the carriage-window to
tell him so, he drew a pipe from his pocket, go