Now he looked gloomily before him as if all was over, now he buried his face in his hands, next his eyes were closed as if in prayer.

All this the Dominie stood from him, but when at last he began to blubber-- At the blackboard was an arithmetic class, slates in hand, each member adding up aloud in turn a row of figures.

By and by it was known that Cathro had ceased to listen.

"Go on," his voice rather than himself said, and he accepted Mary Dundas's trembling assertion that four and seven make ten.

Such was the faith in Cathro that even boys who could add promptly turned their eleven into ten, and he did not catch them at it.