iment concerning him--a foolish presentiment
that grew out of a dream.

"In case anything of that kind turns up," he continued, "I 'd like you
to have my Latin grammar here--you 've seen me reading it. You might
stick it away in a bookcase, for the sake of old times. It goes against
me to think of it falling into rough hands or being kicked about camp
and trampled underfoot."

He was drumming softly with his fingers on the volume in the bosom of
his blouse.

"I did n't intend to speak of this to a living soul," he went on,
motioning me not to answer him; "but something took hold of me to-night
and made me follow you up here, Perhaps if I told you all, you would be
the more willing to look after the little book in case it goes ill with
me. When the war broke out I was teaching school down in Maine, in the
same village where my father was schoolmaster before me. The old man
when he died left me quite alone. I lived pretty much by myself, having
no interests outside of the district school, which seemed in a manner my
personal property. Eight years ago last spring a new pupil was brought
to the school, a slight slip of a girl, with a sad kind of face and
quiet ways. Perhaps it was because she was n't very strong, and perhaps
because she was n't used over well by those who had charge of her, or
perhaps it was because my life was lonely, that my heart warmed to the
child. It all seems like a dream now, since that April morning when
little Mary stood in front of my desk with her pretty eyes looking down
bashfully and her soft hair falling over her face. One day I look up,
and six years have gone by--as they go by in dreams--and among the
scholars is a tall girl of sixteen, with serious, womanly eyes which I
cannot trust myself to look upon. The old life has come to an end.
The child has become a woman and can teach the master now. So help me
Heaven, I did n't know that I loved her until that day!

"Long after the children had gone home I sat in the school-room with
my face resting on my hands. There was her desk, the afternoon shadows
falling across it. It never looked empty and cheerless before. I went
and stood by the low chair, as I had stood hundreds of times. On the
desk was a pile of books, ready to be taken away, and among the rest a
small Latin grammar which we had studied together. What little despairs
and triumphs and happy hours were associated with it! I took it up
curiously, as if it were some gentle dead thin