At length the dread of pursuit subsiding, I slackened my steps, and cast a furtive glance behind me.

The cupola of the academy gleamed white through the oak trees that surrounded it, and above them the glittering vane, fashioned in the form of a giant pen, seemed writing on the azure page of heaven.
My home,--the little cottage in the woods, was one mile distant.

There was a by-path, a foot-path, as it was called, which cut the woods in a diagonal line, and which had been trodden hard and smooth by the feet of the children.

Even at mid-day there was twilight in that solitary path, and when the shadows deepened and lengthened on the plain, they concentrated into gloominess there.

The moment I turned into that path, I was supreme.