“To think,” the lieutenant went on, “of that Junonian figure, those lustrous orbs, that golden coronal, that flower of Northern civilization, being wasted on these barbarians!” The speaker uttered an exaggerated but suppressed groan.

His companion, a young man of clean-shaven face and serious aspect, nodded assent, but whispered reprovingly,——­

“’Sh! some one will hear you.  The exercises are going to begin.”

When Miss Chandler stepped forward to announce the hymn to be sung by the school as the first exercise, every eye in the room was fixed upon her, except John’s, which saw only Cicely.  When the teacher had uttered a few words, he looked up to her, and from that moment did not take his eyes off Martha’s face.

After the singing, a little girl, dressed in white, crossed by ribbons of red and blue, recited with much spirit a patriotic poem.

When Martha announced the third exercise, John’s face took on a more than usually animated expression, and there was a perceptible deepening of the troubled look in his eyes, never entirely absent since Cicely had found him in the woods.

A little yellow boy, with long curls, and a frightened air, next ascended the platform.

“Now, Jimmie, be a man, and speak right out,” whispered his teacher, tapping his arm reassuringly with her fan as he passed her.

Jimmie essayed to recite the lines so familiar to a past generation of schoolchildren:——­

  “I knew a widow very poor,
     Who four small children had;
  The eldest was but six years old,
     A gentle, modest lad.”

He ducked his head hurriedly in a futile attempt at a bow; then, following instructions previously given him, fixed his eyes upon a large cardboard motto hanging on the rear wall of the room, which admonished him in bright red letters to

“ALWAYS SPEAK THE TRUTH,”

and started off with assumed confidence

  “I knew a widow very poor,
     Who”——­

At this point, drawn by an irresistible impulse, his eyes sought the level of the audience.  Ah, fatal blunder!  He stammered, but with an effort raised his eyes and began again: 

  “I knew a widow very poor,
     Who four”——­

Again his treacherous eyes fell, and his little remaining self-possession utterly forsook him.  He made one more despairing effort:——­

  “I knew a widow very poor,
     Who four small”——­

and then, bursting into tears, turned and fled amid a murmur of sympathy.

Jimmie’s inglorious retreat was covered by the singing in chorus of “The Star-spangled Banner,” after which Cicely Green came forward to recite her poem.

“By Jove, Maxwell!” whispered the young officer, who was evidently a connoisseur of female beauty, “that is n’t bad for a bronze Venus.  I ’ll tell you”——­

“’Sh!” said the other.  “Keep still.”