There he bade her "good night." The moon shone brightly on the narrow path before them.

He stood and watched the bent little figure as it staggered down the road, and waited until it had passed the little graveyard and reached the curve of the hill, where it turned and stood for a moment, a mere atom of suffering outlined against the far-off patient stars.

Then he went back to his work.

But the lines of the copybook thereafter faded into long parallels of never-ending road, over which childish figures seemed to pass sobbing and crying into the night.

Then, the little schoolhouse seeming lonelier than before, he shut the door and went home.
The next morning Mliss came to school.