“Your thesis is perfectly correct; there is not a mistake in it,” said Ishmael encouragingly.

“Oh, yes, it is correct enough; but yours, Ishmael, is not only that, but more! for it is strong, logical, eloquent!  Now I can be accurate enough, for that matter; but I cannot be anything more!  I cannot be strong, logical, or eloquent in my own native and living language, much less in a foreign and a dead one!  So, Ishmael, you will gain the prize.”

“I am quite sure that I shall not,” replied our boy.

“Then it will be because our examiners will know no more of Greek than I do, and not so much as yourself!  And as that cannot possibly be the case, they must award you the prize, my boy.  And you shall be welcome to it for me!  I have done my duty in doing the very best I could; and if you excel me by doing better still, Heaven forbid that I should be so base as to grudge you the reward you have so well earned.  So God bless you, old boy,” said Walter, as he parted from his friend.

CHAPTER XXX.

ISHMAEL AND CLAUDIA.

  And both were young—­yet not alike in youth;
  As the sweet moon upon the horizon’s verge,
  The maid was on the eve of womanhood;
  The boy had no more summers; but his heart
  Had far out-grown his years, and to his eye
  There was but one beloved face on earth,
  And that was shining on him.

  —­Byron.

The first of August, the decisive day, arrived.  It was to be a fete day for the whole neighborhood—­that quiet neighbourhood, where fetes, indeed, were so unusual as to make a great sensation when they did occur.  There was to be the examination in the forenoon, followed by the distribution of prizes in the afternoon, and a dance in the evening.  “The public” were invited to attend in the morning and afternoon, and the parents, friends, and guardians of the pupils were invited to remain for the dinner and ball in the evening.  All the young people were on the qui vive for this festival; and their elders were not much less excited.

Everywhere they were preparing dresses as well as lessons.

Poor Hannah Worth, whose circumstances were much improved since she had been seamstress in general to Mrs. Middleton’s large family, had strained every nerve to procure for Ishmael a genteel suit of clothes for this occasion.  And she had succeeded.  And this summer morning saw Ishmael arrayed, for the first time in his life, in a neat, well-fitting dress suit of light gray cassimere, made by the Baymouth tailor.  Hannah was proud of her nephew, and Ishmael was pleased with himself.  He was indeed a handsome youth, as he stood smiling there for the inspection of his aunt.  Every vestige of ill health had left him, but left him with a delicacy, refinement, and elegance in his person, manners, and speech very rare in any youth, rarer still in youth of his humble grade.  But all this was of the soul.