Forty idle children made the room lively. Anania was the tallest of them all. Perhaps for this reason the little mistress turned oftenest to him. Besides the moustache she had two terrible, fierce, dark eyes, and she addressed Anania by his surname, speaking partly in Italian, partly in Sardinian. He was honoured by her persistent attention, though he found it a little tedious. At the end of three hours he was actually able to read and to write two letters. One of them was a mere round O, but that did not detract from the importance of his attainment. At eleven o'clock he was dead sick of the school and the mistress and his stiff, smart clothes. He thought longingly of the courtyard, the elder tree, the basket of fruit into which he was in the habit of thrusting predatory fingers. He yawned. Was the going away hour never coming? Many of the children were in tears, and the mistress wasted her breath preaching about order and the love of lessons. At last the door burst open. The school officer--also dressed in costume--showed his shaven face for a single instant and shouted, "Time!" The children made one simultaneous rush to the door, tumbling over each other and shouting. Anania was left to the last, and the mistress began to pat his head with her scraggy fingers. "Yes, Ma'am." "Bravo! Remember me to your mother." That, of course, referred to Aunt Tatàna. He suddenly felt quite fond of his teacher, who now hurried after the rest of the noisy children. "What style of going out is that?" she cried, capturing as many as she could. "Come now! Two and two! In a proper line!" She placed them in order, and they filed down the corridor through the door, out into the street. There they were set free and they scattered like birds escaped from a net, screaming and jumping. Older and more serious scholars issued from the other class-rooms, all in their rows. Bustianeddu fell upon Anania, slamming his copy books on the child's head and seizing his arm. "Did you like it?" he asked. "Yes," replied Anania, "but I'm so awfully hungry. I thought it was never going to stop." "Did you imagine it would only last a minute?" said the other in his superior voice. "Just you wait a bit. You'll know something of hunger in a little while! Look! there's Margherita Carboni!" The little girl with the violet stockings, the rosy handkerchief, the green woollen sleeves, appeared among the female pupils, who were dismissed after the boys. She passed in front of Anania and Bustianeddu without noticing them, followed by other girls, rich and poor, young ladies and peasants, some nearly grown up, and in training as coquettes. The older boys stopped to laugh with and admire them. "They're spooning," said Bustianeddu, "if the master were to catch them----" Anania did not answer. Boys and girls of that dignity seemed to him quite old enough for love-making. "They even write to each other!" said Bustianeddu importantly.