'I mean it all.

If he hadn't been poring over his books out of fear of you, he would have been well and merry now, I know he would.' The schoolmaster looked round upon the other women as if to entreat some one among them to say a kind word for him, but they shook their heads, and murmured to each other that they never thought there was much good in learning, and that this convinced them.

Without saying a word in reply, or giving them a look of reproach, he followed the old woman who had summoned him (and who had now rejoined them) into another room, where his infant friend, half-dressed, lay stretched upon a bed.
He was a very young boy; quite a little child.

His hair still hung in curls about his face, and his eyes were very bright; but their light was of Heaven, not earth.

The schoolmaster took a seat beside him, and stooping over the pillow, whispered his name.