least to claim the lion's share of the honors
held out.

As Hamilton scarcely allowed himself time to run once round the
playground in the day, it cannot be supposed that even had he
condescended to notice Louis he would have found much time to
attend to him. More than once, however, he looked rather anxiously
down the long table where Louis now sat (Reginald having insisted
on his leaving the school-room and his companions to their fate),
and, apparently satisfied that he was doing something, resumed his
own work. Louis' mind was more than ever occupied now--every moment
was taken up with lessons of one kind or another. The first waking
thoughts, which were formerly, at least, a consciousness of the
presence of his Maker, were now so mixed up with Latin verses,
English translations, French plays, ancient and modern history,
that a very short time sufficed for his cold prayer--and then
poured in the whole flood of daily business, only checked by as
cold a semblance of a petition at night. The former half-year the
case, though similar in many respects, differed in the greatest
essential. Louis was not less diligent than now, but he was more
prayerful; he had not more time, but he used it better; he did not
leave his religion for a few minutes at night and morning, and forget
it for the rest of the day; he did not shut up his Bible, and scarcely
look at it from Sunday to Sunday. He who waits closely upon his God
is sure to be enabled to serve him in the beauty of holiness: and
those who thought at all about Louis could not but be struck with
the wide difference between the gentle, humble, happy-looking boy,
who bore so meekly what was unkindly done and spoken, and the equally
industrious, but fevered, restless, anxious, and now rather irritable
being, who toiled on day after day almost beyond his strength.

The first day of the examination, Charles Clifton and Louis were
walking together, between school-hours, settling the order in which
their labors were to be undertaken. As they turned the corner of
the playground, near the kitchen, they encountered Harris, Casson,
and Churchill, who, with Sally Simmons and her basket of apples,
blocked up a narrow passage between the side of the house and the
kitchen-garden wall.

"Aint they beauties, Louis?" said Churchill, at the sight. The mention
of apples sufficiently disturbed Louis in the present company, and he
made a violent effort to get past Harris, who was, however, so