The thundering voice of the master rolled after me, like a heavy stone,
threatening to crush me as it rolled. I bounded on before it with
constantly accelerating speed.

"Go back,--never!"

I said this to myself. I repeated it aloud to the breeze that came
coolly and soothingly through the green boughs, to fan the burning
cheeks of the fugitive. At length the dread of pursuit subsiding, I
slackened my steps, and cast a furtive glance behind me. The cupola of
the academy gleamed white through the oak trees that surrounded it, and
above them the glittering vane, fashioned in the form of a giant pen,
seemed writing on the azure page of heaven.

My home,--the little cottage in the woods, was one mile distant. There
was a by-path, a foot-path, as it was called, which cut the woods in a
diagonal line, and which had been trodden hard and smooth by the feet of
the children. Even at mid-day there was twilight in that solitary path,
and when the shadows deepened and lengthened on the plain, they
concentrated into gloominess there. The moment I turned into that path,
I was supreme. It was _mine_. The public road, the thoroughfare leading
through the heart of the town, belonged to the world. I was obliged to
walk there like other people, with mincing steps, and bonnet tied primly
under the chin, according to the rule and plummet line of school-girl
propriety. But in my own little by-path, I could do just as I pleased. I
could run with my bonnet swinging in my hand, and my hair floating like
the wild vine of the woods. I could throw myself down on the grass at
the foot of the great trees, and looking up into the deep, distant sky,
indulge my own wondrous imaginings.

I did so now. I cast myself panting on the turf, and turning my face
downward instead of upward, clasped my hands over it, and the hot tears
gushed in scalding streams through my fingers, till the pillow of earth
was all wet as with a shower.

Oh, they did me good, those fast-gushing tears! There was comfort, there
was luxury in them. Bless God for tears! How they cool the dry and
sultry heart! How they refresh the fainting virtues! How they revive the
dying affections!

The image of my pale sweet, gentle mother rose softly through the
falling drops. A rainbow seemed to crown her with its seven-fold beams.

Dear mother!--would she will me to go back where the giant pen dipped
its glittering nib into the deep blue ether?

CHAPTER II.

"Get up, Gabrie