am a reasoning creature, and it behooves me to sing the praise of
God; this is my task, and this I do, nor as long as it is granted
me, will I ever abandon this post. And you, too, I summon to join me
in the same song."

"A wonderfully 'advanced' Christian way of looking at life, for a
pagan slave of the time of Nero!" thought Walden, as his eyes
wandered from the thrush on the almond tree, back to the volume in
his hand,--"With all our teaching and preaching, we can hardly do
better. I wonder---"

Here his mind became altogether distracted from classic lore, by the
appearance of a very unclassic boy, clad in a suit of brown
corduroys and wearing hob-nailed boots a couple of sizes too large
for him, who, coming suddenly out from a box-tree alley behind the
gabled corner of the rectory, shuffled to the extreme verge of the
lawn and stopped there, pulling his cap off, and treading on his own
toes from left to right, and from right to left in a state of
sheepish hesitancy.

"Come along,--come along! Don't stand there, Bob Keeley!" And Walden
rose, placing Epictetus on the seat he vacated--"What is it?"

Bob Keeley set his hob-nailed feet on the velvety lawn with gingerly
precaution, and advancing cap in hand, produced a letter, slightly
grimed by his thumb and finger.

"From Sir Morton, please sir! Hurgent, 'e sez."

Walden took the missive, small and neatly folded, and bearing the