"Yes, sir," I answered.
"A fine slip of a girl that and a born scholar. I saw you look at her as the Persian looks at the rising sun."
I blushed and Mary and her mother and the boy John looked at me and laughed.
"Puer pulcherrime!" Mr. Hacket exclaimed with a kindly smile.
Uncle Peabody would have called it a "stout snag." The schoolmaster had hauled it out of his brain very deftly and chucked it down before me in a kind of challenge.
"What does that mean?" I asked.
"You shall know in a week, my son," he answered. "I shall put you into the Latin class Wednesday morning, and God help you to like it as well as you like Sally."
Again they laughed and again I blushed.
"Hold up yer head, my brave lad," he went on. "Ye've a perfect right to like Sally if ye've a heart to."
He sang a rollicking ballad of which I remember only the refrain: