unbearable burden.

He rose by degrees from mere spelling to the study of a foreign
language, German. He learned his Catechism by heart--or rather by rote,
for the time-worn phrases dropped from his lips at demand very much as
water runs down a mill sluice, without leaving any trace. In fact,
little of what he learned appeared to touch his real life at all. Nor
could he be made to take it very seriously, although, on the whole, he
was counted a good pupil.

He used schoolbooks, of course, but he was rarely caught reading one of
them. His mind seemed to master the offered knowledge by some mysterious
process of absorption of which he himself was never aware. Study in the
sense of close and painful application was quite foreign to him. Yet he
seemed capable of mastering anything that aroused his interest--or that
stirred his vanity, for he loved to shine. Unfortunately most of his
schoolmates were dull plodders who had not yet reached a stage where
plodding counted, and so his triumphs came easy and there was nothing to
spur him into serious effort.

At the end of the third year he had practically exhausted the
possibilities of the little school in the South End, and it was
understood that he would not return in the fall, when he would be nine
years old. But nothing had been decided about what he was to do instead.

He had not been unhappy with the Misses Ahlberg and his leave-taking
lacked none of the expected emotional colouring. Yet he left without a
pang, without regrets. It was as if he had passed through that school in
his sleep, waking up only when he reached home and his books. He had
made no friends and formed no ties at school, and outside of it he had