ey tossed the ball and shouted as they tossed
it, "Anty, anty over"; and the band on the other side, warned by the
cry, caught the ball on the rebound if they could, and tore around the
corner of the building, trying to hit with it any luckless wight on
the other side, and so claim him for their own, and thus changing
sides, the merry romp went on.

Betty came to the door with the bell in her hand, and stood for a
moment looking out in the sunshine. One of the smallest of the boys
ran to her and threw his arms around her, and, looking up in her face,
screamed in wildest excitement, "I caught it twice, Teacher, I did."

With her hand on his head she looked in his eyes and smiled and
tinkled her little bell, and the children, big and little, all came
crowding through the door, hustling like a flock of chickens, and
every boy snatched off his cap as he rushed by her.

Ah, grave, dignified little Betty! Who was that passing slowly along
the road? Like a wild rose by the wayside she seemed to him, with her
pink cheeks and in her soft green gown, framed thus by the doorway of
the old schoolhouse. Naturally she had no recognition for this bearded
man, walking by with stiff, soldierly step, yet something caused her
to look again, turning as she entered, and, when he looked back, their
eyes met, and hers dropped before his, and she was lost to his sight
as she closed the door after her. Of course she could not recognize
him disguised thus with the beard on his face, and his dark, tanned
skin. She did not recognize him, and he was glad, yet sore at heart.

He had had all he could bear, and for the rest of the morning he wrote
letters, sitting in his room at Decker's hotel. Only two letters, but
one was a very long one--to Amalia Manovska. Out in the world he dared
not use her own name, so he addressed the envelope to Miss McBride, in
Larry Kildene's care, at the nearest station to which they had agreed
letters should be sent. Before he finished the second letter the gong
sounded for dinner. The noon meal was always dinner at the hotel. He
thrust his papers and the unfinished letter in his valise and locked
it--and went below.

G. B. Stiles was already there, seated in the same place as on the day
before, and Harry took his seat opposite him, and they began a
conversation in the same facile way, but the manner of the dry-goods
salesman towards him seemed to have undergone a change. It had lost
its swagger, and was more that o