off alone with my dignity.  Then a branch fell out and got tangled in the wheel, and while I was getting it out a twig snapped into my eyes; and there was a stone in my shoe, and altogether,—­well, it was only a mile to the grove, but it was twenty miles back, I can tell you.  Before I reached the campus my arms were so sore, and my foot so lame, and my eye so painful, that my pride ran out at the heels of my boots, like the gunpowder.  I was going pretty slowly, so as to keep the boughs from tumbling out more than was absolutely necessary,—­and I heard the boy lumbering up behind me again.  So, without turning round, I said, ‘You shall help me now, if you please!’ and—­and—­oh, Hildegarde! a deep voice answered, ‘I shall be charmed to do so!’ and I looked up and saw Professor Thunder!”

“Oh, Bell! oh, poor thing!” cried Hildegarde.  “What did you do?”

“Do?” replied Bell.  “I didn’t do anything.  He took the handles from me,—­his own handles, mind you, of his own barrow,—­and trundled it solemnly along.  I was struggling with hysterics.  I am not in the least hysterical by nature, but the combination—­the professor taken for a lout and commanded to trundle his own barrow, stolen by a sophomore, the twig in my eye and the stone in my foot—­was too much for me.  Besides, there seemed nothing in particular to say.  I could not begin ’Please, sir, I thought you were the janitor’s boy!’ nor did ’Please Professor Thunder, this is your wheelbarrow, which I have stolen,’ seem exactly a happy opening for a conversation.  So we went on in silence, and when the branches tumbled off, I picked them up without a word.  How could I be such a dumb idiot?  Don’t ask me!  If it had been any other professor I might have found courage to speak; but Jupiter Tonans was my terror and my hero; I sat at his feet, and the roll of his deep voice was music to my sophomoric ears.  I had never spoken to him out of class, but only that morning he had praised my translation, he who seldom praised anything,—­and now to come to this!

“At last, after about three hours of dreadful silence, he opened his lips and spoke:  ’The greens are for decorational purposes, I presume, Miss Merryweather?’ Oh, and I had hoped he would not remember who I was.

“‘Yes, sir,’ I said.  ‘For the sophomore reception this evening.’

“‘Ah!’ he said, ‘in that case, it will be well for us to hasten.’

“Silence again, while we quickened our pace, making the branches fall off more than ever.  Then—­’The wheelbarrow,’ said the professor, ’amazes us by its combined simplicity and perfection.  The conception of a man of universal genius and vast erudition,—­I allude to Leonardo da Vinci, the marvellous Florentine,—­it has for upwards of three hundred years served mankind as a humble but valued ally.  In every rank of life it finds its place.  This barrow, for example—­’

“My heart came into my mouth.  ‘Professor Thunder,’ I said, ’this is your wheelbarrow.  I came across your lawn, and saw it standing there, and—­I took it.’