and in company with the whole school, in orderly procession, and duly
escorted by an usher, tramped past the church and into the pleasant
green fields that lay beyond the quaint houses of the village. Edgar
Goodfellow was there too--Edgar the gay, the frolicsome, the lover of
sports and hoaxes and trials of strength.

Upon the evening of the young American's arrival, his schoolmates kept
their distance, regarding him with shy curiosity, but by the recess hour
next day this timidity had worn off, and they crowded about him with the
pointed questions and out-spoken criticisms which constitute the
breaking in of a new scholar. The boy received their sallies with such
politeness and good humor and with such an air of modest dignity, that
the wags soon ceased their gibes for very shame and the ring-leaders
began to show in their manner and speech, an air of approval in place of
the suspicion with which they had at first regarded him.

When the questions, "What's your name?"--"How old are you?"--"Where do
you live?" "Were you sick at sea?"--"What made you come to this school?"
"How high can you jump?"--"Can you box?" "Can you fight?"--and the like,
had been promptly and amiably answered, there was a lull. The silence
was broken by young Edgar himself. Drawing himself up to the full height
of his graceful little figure and thumping his chest with his closed
fist, he said, "Any boy who wants to may hit me here, as hard as he
can."

The boys looked at each other inquiringly for a moment--they were
uncertain, whether this was a specimen of American humor or to be taken
literally. Presently the largest and strongest among them stepped
forward. He was a stalwart fellow for his years, but his excessively
blond coloring, together with the effeminate style in which his mother