Gratian's lessons were well learnt and understood. It was not long before he found himself higher in his class than he had almost ever done before, and he caught the master's eye looking at him with approval, and a smile of encouragement on his face. Why was it he could not meet it with a brightly answering smile as he would have done the day before? Why did he turn away, his cheeks tingling again as if the wind had been slapping them, here inside the sheltered schoolroom?
The master felt a little disappointed.
"He will never do really well if he is so foolishly shy and bashful," he said to himself, when Gratian turned away as if ashamed to be grateful for the few kind words the teacher said to him at the end of the morning's lessons; and the boy, in a corner of the playground by himself when the other children had run home for their dinner, felt nearly, if not quite, as unhappy as the day before.
"I don't see why I should mind about Tony," he was thinking as he sat there. "He's a naughty, unkind boy, and he deserves to be punished. If it hadn't been for her helping me, I wouldn't have known my lessons a bit this morning, and the master would have thought I was never going to try. I just hope Tony will lose his place and the prize and everything. Oh, how cold it is!" for round the wall, through it indeed, it almost seemed, came sneaking a sharp little gust of air, so cold, so cutting, that Gratian actually shivered and shook, and the smarting in his face began again. "I feel cold even in my bones," he said to himself.
Just then voices reached his ear. The door of the schoolhouse opened and the master appeared, showing out a lady, who had evidently come to speak to him about something. She was a very pleasant-looking lady, and Gratian's eyes rested with satisfaction on her pretty dress and graceful figure.
"Then you will not forget about it? You will let me know in a few days what you think?" Gratian heard her say.
"Certainly, madam," replied the schoolmaster. "I have already one or two in my mind who, I think, may be suitable. But I should like to think it over and to ask the parents' consent."
"Of course—of course. Good-bye then for the present, and thank you," said the lady, and then she went out at the little garden-gate and the schoolmaster returned into his house.