Page:De Amicis - Heart, translation Hapgood, 1922.djvu/363

Rh to me, who had so much patience, who had toiled for so many years! She has left to her scholars her little books and everything which she possessed, to one an inkstand, to another a little picture. Two days before her death, she said to the headmaster that he was not to allow the smallest of them to go to her funeral, because she did not wish them to cry.

She has done good, she has suffered, she is dead! Poor mistress, left alone in that dark church! Farewell! Farewell forever, my kind friend, sad and sweet memory of my childhood!

Wednesday, 28th.

My poor schoolmistress wanted to finish her year of school: she departed only three days before the end of the lessons. Day after to-morrow we go once more to the schoolroom to hear the reading of the monthly story, The Shipwreck, and then—it is over. On Saturday, the first of July, the examinations begin. And then another year, the fourth, is past! If my mistress had not died, it would have passed well.

I thought over all that I had known on the preceding October, and it seems to me that I know a good deal more: I have so many new things in my mind. I can say and write what I think better than I could then; I can also do the sums of many grown-up men who know nothing about it, and help them in their affairs. I understand much more: I remember nearly everything that I read. I am satisfied.

But how many people have urged me on and helped