"Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast,
The little tyrant of his fields withstood."

He wondered who Hampden was, and what he had done to make him famous
enough to be mentioned in such a poem as Gray's Elegy. Probably a great
general, John decided, who had led vast armies to victory.

John smiled to himself. There surely could not have been two persons
with the same name more utterly unlike, he thought, than the John
Hampden of the poem and John Hampden, the druggist's clerk--"a youth to
Fortune and to Fame unknown."

Just then two girls stopped before him, and John woke from his dreams to
find that the schoolhouse was almost deserted, and that the janitor's
yawning little son had begun to put out the lights.

The girls, no doubt, thought he had smiled at them, and John had
presence of mind enough left to accept the situation. He had meant to
walk home with Matilda Haines, but Matilda had disappeared.

John felt that he hardly knew Margaret Shirley, she had been away in
Boston so long, and he hadn't even been introduced to the young girl
beside her.

"Allow me to present Mr. Hampden, Celia--Mr. John Hampden," said
Margaret, as if in answer to his thought. "My cousin, Miss Kirke, from
Boston, Mr. Hampden."

John felt a trifle afraid of Miss Kirke, she took the introduction so
smilingly and easily. John himself blushed and stammered, and felt more