“Heigho-ho!” yawned Harry, who had dropped in one evening, and curled himself up in his favorite nook, the chimney-corner. “I wish books had never been invented, or schools either, for that matter. I’ve been digging away at one of Æsop’s fables for the last two hours, and I can’t make any sense out of it at all. It’s a lot of stuff about some doves and hawks that got to fighting; but whether the doves eat up the hawks or not, how’s a fellow going to find out? And I got stuck in my algebra, too, and I sha’n’t have a single decent lesson to-morrow, and then old Williams’ll give me a lecture and a zero, and—well, a fellow gets disgusted with that sort of thing for a steady diet. Oh, I tell you I’ll be glad when once I’m out of school, and the pesky business is done with! What’s the use of it, anyhow? I wish I didn’t have to go another day.” “But the time would be apt to hang pretty heavily on your hands, wouldn’t it?” “Oh, I’d find plenty to do to fill up the time, never you fear! Now all these splendid days, along back, when I ought to have been down at the rink, skating, and there I had to sit in that stupid old schoolroom, moping over a desk! It makes me mad to think of it. But I came over—I got so tired studying. I thought maybe you’d have some story or other to tell, Lieutenant.” “A story; what is there you haven’t heard, I wonder? I’m afraid my stock of stories has about run out. Let me see, though,—have you ever heard about Castle Marvel?” “A castle! that’s the kind I like—about castles! no, I never heard it.” “Well, this was a famous castle that stood upon a high mountain, and that people sometimes went to see. Among the rest, there went from a certain city a company of youths. Now, their route lay across a sunny plain that was like a very fairy-land; flowers covered it with every hue of the rainbow, and over these hovered clouds of golden-winged butterflies; and in the shady groves zephyrs sang and birds caroled as never sang zephyrs or caroled birds anywhere else.