"_I_ threw it, Marm," says he, with a great tremor in his voice. The mistress beckons him to her, and, as he walks thither, motions to a bench near her, and says gravely,-- "Sit by me, Reuben." There he keeps till school-hours are over, wondering what shape the punishment will take. At last, when all are gone, the mistress leads him into her private closet, and says solemnly,-- "Reuben, this is a crime against God. I forgive you; I hope He may"; and she bids him kneel beside her, while she prays in a way that makes the tears start to the eyes of the boy. Then, home,--she walking by his side, and leading him straight into the study of the grave Doctor, to whom she unfolds the story, begging him not to punish the lad, believing that he is penitent. And the meekness and kindliness of the good woman make a Christian picture for the mind of Reuben, in sad contrast with the prim austerity of Aunt Eliza,--a picture that he never loses,--that keeps him meekly obedient for the rest of the quarter; after which, by the advice of Miss Onthank, both Phil and Reuben are transferred to the boys' academy upon the Common. XXII. Meantime, Adele is making friends in Ashfield and in the parsonage. The irrepressible buoyancy of her character cannot be kept under even by the severity of conduct which belongs to the home of the Doctor. If she yields rigid obedience to all the laws of the household, as she is taught to do, her vivacity sparkles all the more in those short intervals of time when the laws are silent. There is something in this beaming mirth of hers which the Doctor loves, though he struggles against the love. He shuts his door fast, that the snatches of some profane song from her little lips (with him all French songs are profane) may not come in to disturb him; but as her voice rises cheerily, higher and higher, in the summer dusk, he catches himself lending a profane ear; the blitheness, the sweetness, the mellowness of her tones win upon his dreary solitude; there is something softer in them than in the measured vocables of sister Eliza; it brings a souvenir of the girlish Rachel, and his memory floats back upon the strains of the new singer, to the days when that dear voice filled his heart; and he thinks--thanking Adaly for the thought--she is singing with the angels now! But the spinster, who has no ear for music, in the midst of such a carol, will cry out in sharp tones from her chamber, "Adele, Adele, not so loud, child! you will disturb the Doctor!" Even then Adele has her resource in the garden and the orchard, where she never tires of wandering up and down,--and never wandering there but some fragment of a song breaks from her lips.