CHAPTER XXI

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    "At such a time,so dark,so dreary, for human
    sympathy my very spirit sighed; but instead thereof,

    "'My dearest friend, my counsellor, my comforter
    and guide -- My joy in grief, my second bliss
    in joy,' came to my side. She moved like one of
    those bright beings pictured in the sunny walks
    of fancy's Eden by the romantic and young, a
    queen of beauty unadorned save by her own
    transcendent loveliness. So soft was her step, it
    failed to make even a sound, and but for the
    magical thrill imparted by her genial touch, as
    other unobtrusive beauties, she would have glided
    away un-perceived -- unsought. A strange sadness
    rested upon her features, like icy tears upon
    the robe of December, as she pointed to the
    contending elements without, and bade me contemplate
    the two beings presented."

This nightmare occupied some ten pages of manuscript and wound up with a sermon so destructive of all hope to non-Presbyterians that it took the first prize. This composition was considered to be the very finest effort of the evening. The mayor of the village, in delivering the prize to the author of it, made a warm speech in which he said that it was by far the most "eloquent" thing he had ever listened to, and that Daniel Webster himself might well be proud of it.

It may be remarked, in passing, that the number of compositions in which the word "beauteous" was over-fondled, and human experience referred to as "life's page," was up to the usual average.

Now the master, mellow almost to the verge of geniality, put his chair aside, turned his back to the audience, and began to draw a map of America on the blackboard, to exercise the geography class upon. But he made a sad business of it with his unsteady hand, and a smothered titter rippled over the house. He knew what the matter was, and set himself to right it. He sponged out lines and remade them; but he only distorted them more than ever, and the tittering was more pronounced. He threw his entire attention upon his work, now, as if determined not to be put down by the mirth. He felt that all eyes were fastened upon him; he imagined he was succeeding, and yet the tittering continued; it even manifestly increased. And well it might. There was a garret above, pierced with a scuttle over his head; and down through this scuttle came a cat, suspended around the haunches by a string; she had a rag tied about her head and jaws to keep her from mewing; as she slowly descended she curved upward and clawed at the string, she swung downward and clawed at the intangible air. The tittering rose higher and higher -- the cat was within six inches of the absorbed teacher's head -- down, down, a little lower, and she grabbed his wig with her desperate claws, clung to it, and was snatched up into the garret in an instant with her trophy still in her possession! And how the light did blaze abroad from the master's bald pate -- for the sign-painter's boy had GILDED it!