make a certainty of his condition, he took a dynamometer from one of the
drawers in his old veneered bureau. First he squeezed it with his two
hands. Then he placed it on the floor and lifted, steadily, strongly.
The springs creaked and cracked; the index swept with a great stride far
up into the high figures of the scale; it was a good lift. He was
satisfied. He sat down on the edge of his bed and looked at his
cleanly-shaped arms. "If I strike one of those boobies, I am afraid I
shall spoil him," he said. Yet this young man, when weighed with his
class at the college, could barely turn one hundred and forty-two pounds
in the scale,--not a heavy weight, surely; but some of the middle
weights, as the present English champion, for instance, seem to be of a
far finer quality of muscle than the bulkier fellows.

The master took his breakfast with a good appetite that morning, but was
perhaps rather more quiet than usual. After breakfast he went up-stairs
and put, on a light loose frock, instead of that which he commonly wore,
which was a close-fitting and rather stylish one. On his way to school
he met Alminy Cutterr, who happened to be walking in the other direction.
"Good-morning, Miss Cutter," he said; for she and another young lady had
been introduced to him, on a former occasion, in the usual phrase of
polite society in presenting ladies to gentlemen,--"Mr. Langdon, let me
make y' acquainted with Miss Cutterr;--let me make y' acquainted with
Miss Braowne." So he said, "Good-morning"; to which she replied,
"Good-mornin', Mr. Langdon. Haow's your haalth?" The answer to this
question ought naturally to have been the end of the talk; but Alminy
Cutterr lingered and looked as if she had something more on her mind.

A young fellow does not require a great experience to read a simple
country-girl's face as if it were a sign-board. Alminy was a good soul,
with red cheeks and bright eyes, kind-hearted as she could be, and it was