until the last moment, and only relinquishing possible truancy on the
very threshold. Even after they were marshalled on their usual
benches they gazed at each other every morning with a perfectly fresh
astonishment and a daily recurring enjoyment of some hidden joke in this
tremendous rencontre.

It had been the habit of the master to utilize these preliminary
vagrancies of his little flock by inviting them on assembling to recount
any interesting incident of their journey hither; or failing this, from
their not infrequent shyness in expressing what had secretly interested
them, any event that had occurred within their knowledge since they last
met. He had done this, partly to give them time to recover themselves
in that more formal atmosphere, and partly, I fear, because,
notwithstanding his conscientious gravity, it greatly amused him. It
also diverted them from their usual round-eyed, breathless contemplation
of himself--a regular morning inspection which generally embraced every
detail of his dress and appearance, and made every change or deviation
the subject of whispered comment or stony astonishment. He knew that
they knew him more thoroughly than he did himself, and shrank from the
intuitive vision of these small clairvoyants.

"Well?" said the master gravely.

There was the usual interval of bashful hesitation, verging on nervous
hilarity or hypocritical attention. For the last six months this
question by the master had been invariably received each morning as a
veiled pleasantry which might lead to baleful information or conceal
some query out of the dreadful books before him. Yet this very element
of danger had its fascinations. Johnny Filgee, a small boy, blushed
violently, and, without getting up, began hurriedly in a high key, "Tige