to the examination all their leisure time was
bestowed upon this work. The day before the examination each completed
his own composition. And then, like good, confidential, unenvying
friends as they were, they exchanged papers and gave each other a sight
of their work. When each had read and returned his rival's thesis,
Walter said with a sigh:

"It will be just as I foreboded, Ishmael. I said you would take the
prize, and now I know it."

Ishmael paused some time before he answered calmly:

"No, Walter, I will not take it."

"Not take it! nonsense! if you do not take it, it will be because the
examiners do not know their business! Why, Ishmael, there can be no
question as to the relative merits of your composition and mine! Mine
will not bear an instant's comparison with yours."

"Your thesis is perfectly correct; there is not a mistake in it," said
Ishmael encouragingly.

"Oh, yes, it is correct enough; but yours, Ishmael, is not only that,
but more! for it is strong, logical, eloquent! Now I can be accurate
enough, for that matter; but I cannot be anything more! I cannot be
strong, logical, or eloquent in my own native and living language, much
less in a foreign and a dead one! So, Ishmael, you will gain the prize."

"I am quite sure that I shall not," replied our boy.

"Then it will be because our examiners will know no more of Greek than I
do, and not so much as yourself! And as that cannot possibly be the
case, they must award you the prize, my boy. And you shall be welcome to
it for me! I have done my duty in doing the very best I could; and if
you excel me by doing better still, Heaven forbid that I should be so
base as to grudge you the reward you have so well earned. So God bless
you, old boy," said Walter, as he parted from his friend.

CHAPTER XXX.

ISHMAEL AND CLAUDIA.

And both were young--yet not alike in youth;
As the sweet moon upon the horizon's verge,
The maid was on the eve of womanhood;
The boy had no more summers; but his heart
Had far out-grown his years, and to his eye
There was but one beloved face on earth,
And that was shining on him.

--_Byron_.

The first of August, the decisive day, arrived. It was to be a fete day
for the whole neighborhood--that quiet neighbourhood, where fetes,
indeed, were so unusual as to make a great sensation when they did
occur. There was to be the examination in the forenoon, followed by the
distribution of prizes in the aft