Whenever I looked up from my writing I saw M. Hamel sitting motionless in his chair and gazing first at one thing, then at another, as if he wanted to fix in his mind just how everything looked in that little school-room.  Fancy!  For forty years he had been there in the same place, with his garden outside the window and his class in front of him, just like that.  Only the desks and benches had been worn smooth; the walnut-trees in the garden were taller, and the hop-vine, that he had planted himself twined about the windows to the roof.  How it must have broken his heart to leave it all, poor man; to hear his sister moving about in the room above, packing their trunks!  For they must leave the country next day.

But he had the courage to hear every lesson to the very last.  After the writing, we had a lesson in history, and then the babies chanted their ba, be, bi, bo, bu.  Down there at the back of the room old Hauser had put on his spectacles and, holding his primer in both hands, spelled the letters with them.  You could see that he, too, was crying; his voice trembled with emotion, and it was so funny to hear him that we all wanted to laugh and cry.  Ah, how well I remember it, that last lesson!

All at once the church-clock struck twelve.  Then the Angelus.  At the same moment the trumpets of the Prussians, returning from drill, sounded under our windows.  M. Hamel stood up, very pale, in his chair.  I never saw him look so tall.

“My friends,” said he, “I—­I—­” But something choked him.  He could not go on.

Then he turned to the blackboard, took a piece of chalk, and, bearing on with all his might, he wrote as large as he could: 

“Vive La France!”

Then he stopped and leaned his head against the wall, and, without a word, he made a gesture to us with his hand; “School is dismissed—­you may go.”

CROISILLES

BY ALFRED DE MUSSET

I

At the beginning of the reign of Louis XV., a young man named Croisilles, son of a goldsmith, was returning from Paris to Havre, his native town.  He had been intrusted by his father with the transaction of some business, and his trip to the great city having turned out satisfactorily, the joy of bringing good news caused him to walk the sixty leagues more gaily and briskly than was his wont; for, though he had a rather large sum of money in his pocket, he travelled on foot for pleasure.  He was a good-tempered fellow, and not without wit, but so very thoughtless and flighty that people looked upon him as being rather weak-minded.  His doublet buttoned awry, his periwig flying to the wind, his hat under his arm, he followed the banks of the Seine, at times finding enjoyment in his own thoughts and again indulging in snatches of song; up at daybreak, supping at wayside inns, and always charmed with this stroll of his through