GYMNASTICS.
Tuesday, 5th.
As the weather continues extremely fine, they have made us pass from chamber gymnastics to gymnastics with apparatus in the garden.
Garrone was in the head-master’s office yesterday when Nelli’s mother, that blond woman dressed in black, came in to get her son excused from the new exercises. Every word cost her an effort; and as she spoke, she held one hand on her son’s head.
“He is not able to do it,” she said to the head-master. But Nelli showed much grief at this exclusion from the apparatus, at having this added humiliation imposed upon him.
“You will see, mamma,” he said, “that I shall do like the rest.”
His mother gazed at him in silence, with an air of pity and affection. Then she remarked, in a hesitating way, “I fear lest his companions—”
What she meant to say was, “lest they should make sport of him.” But Nelli replied:—
“They will not do anything to me—and then, there is Garrone. It is sufficient for him to be present, to prevent their laughing.”