It did not help him in his reading that Bob made his lips move with the rest, but said, loud enough for him to hear,—

  "The man in the moon
  Came down too soon,"

and continued to repeat some senseless or wicked rhymes, through the reading of the beautiful chapter.

How thankfully Tip bowed his head that morning; his heart had taken in some of the sweet words. That sacred head had been crowned with thorns, indeed, but he knew it was crowned with glory now,—and he knew that Christ had suffered and died for him! He joined with his whole heart in Mr. Burrows's prayer; and, though Bob pulled his hair and tickled his foot and stepped on his toes, the bowed head was not lifted, and his spirit gathered strength.

But Tip never forgot the trials of that day, nor the hard work which he had to endure them. Bob was, as usual, overflowing with mischief, and, failing in finding the willing helper which he had expected in his old companion, took revenge in aiming a great many of his pranks at him. Such senseless, silly things as he did to annoy! Tip spread his slate over with a long row of figures which he earnestly tried to add, and, having toiled slowly up the first two columns, Bob's wet finger was slyly drawn across it, and no trace of the answer so hardly earned appeared.

Then, too, he had his own heart to struggle against: he was so used to whispering to this and that boy seated near him, to eating apples when the teacher's back was turned, to making an ugly-looking picture on a piece of paper and pinning it on the back of a small boy before him. He was