Mrs. Murray, seeing that it would please the dominie, took the book,
with a spot of color coming in her delicate, high-bred face.

"You must all do your best now, to help me," she said, with a smile that
brought an answering smile flashing along the line. Even Thomas Finch
allowed his stolid face a gleam of intelligent sympathy, which, however,
he immediately suppressed, for he remembered that the next turn was
his, and that he must be getting himself into the appearance of dogged
desperation which he considered suitable to a reading exercise.

"Now, Thomas," said the minister's wife, sweetly, and Thomas plunged
heavily.

"They fought like brave men, long--"

"Oh, Thomas, I think we will try that man's verse again, with the cries
of battle in it, you know. I am sure you can do that well."

It was all the same to Thomas. There were no words he could not spell,
and he saw no reason why he should not do that verse as well as
any other. So, with an extra knitting of his eyebrows, he set forth
doggedly.

"An-hour-passed-on-the-Turk-awoke-that-bright-dream-was-his-last."

Thomas's voice fell with the unvarying regularity of the beat of a
trip-hammer.

"He-woke-to-hear-his-sentries-shriek-to-arms-they-come-the-Greek
the-Greek-he-woke--"