ty. He
came down the hill swinging his arms, like opposing pendulums, in a
manner that made the rapid pace at which he approached like a long slow
trot. With the door-key in his hand, already pointed towards the
key-hole, he went right through the little crowd, which cleared a wide
path for him, without word or gesture of greeting on either side. I
might almost say he swooped upon the door, for with one hand on the
key, and the other on the latch, he seemed to wrench it open the moment
he touched it. In he strode, followed at the heels by the troop of
boys, big and little, and lastly by the girls--last of all, at a short
distance, by Annie, like a motherless lamb that followed the flock,
because she did not know what else to do. She found she had to go down
a step into a sunk passage or lobby, and then up another step, through
a door on the left, into the school. There she saw a double row of
desks, with a clear space down the middle between the rows. Each
scholar was hurrying to his place at one of the desks, where, as he
arrived, he stood. The master already stood in solemn posture at the
nearer end of the room on a platform behind his desk, prepared to
commence the extempore prayer, which was printed in a kind of blotted
stereotype upon every one of their brains. Annie had hardly succeeded
in reaching a vacant place among the girls when he began. The boys were
as still as death while the master prayed; but a spectator might easily
have discovered that the chief good some of them got from the ceremony
was a perfect command of the organs of sound; for the restraint was
limited to those organs; and projected tongues, deprived of their
natural exercise, turned themselves, along with winking eyes, contorted
features, and a wild use of hands and arms, into the means of
telegraphic despatches to all parts of the room, throughout the
ceremony. The master, afraid of being himself detected in the attempt
to combine prayer and vision, kept his "eyelids screwed together
tight," and played the spy with his ears alone. The boys and girls,
understanding the source of their security perfectly, believed that the
eyelids of the master would keep faith with them, and so disported
themselves without fear in the delights of dumb show.

As soon as the prayer was over they dropped, with no little noise and
bustle, into their seats. But presently Annie was rudely pushed out of
her seat by a hoydenish girl, who, arriving late, had stood outs