The sight of so many young persons, their faces intent, their minds engrossed with each succeeding evolution of gesticulation, their bodies swaying in unison, was an agreeable one. Entirely in a subconscious way I observed that Miss Hamm's hair was not plaited up and confined to the head with ribands, pins or other appliances in vogue among her sex, but depended in loose and luxuriant masses about her face; I remarked its colour--a chestnut brown--and a tendency upon its part to form into ringlets when unconfined, the resultant effect being somewhat attractive. At the moment of my entrance her side face was presented to me; a piquant and comely profile I should term it, without professing in the least to have judgment in such matters.
Presently discovering that an intruder had appeared upon the scene, she paused in her work of directing her class and, turning toward me, inquired whether there was anything I desired. Having no excuse to account for my presence, I stated that I had mistaken the door and, briefly begging her pardon for having interrupted her, I withdrew. Later I found myself striving with a vague and unaccountable desire to return and witness more of the dumb-bell evolutions.
APRIL THE EIGHTEENTH.--A strange lassitude besets me. I first discerned it this forenoon soon after the burden of the school day was taken up. A marked disinclination for the prescribed routine of classroom and study hall appears to be one of its most pronounced manifestations. I am strangely distraught; preoccupied with truant and wandering thoughts having no bearing upon the task in hand.
Seeking to throw off these distractions, I quite casually dropped into the gymnasium. It was empty. Upon finding it so, a small sense of disappointment beset me. I then went for a walk, trusting to the soft and gentle influences of out-of-doors to dispel the meaningless vapourings which beset my consciousness. My wandering feet automatically carried me to Locust Lane, where for some time I lingered in idleness.
The class in horseback riding did not pass, as once before. Presumably our young equestriennes, if abroad, had taken some other direction. In pensive thought not untinctured with a fleeting depression, I returned at dusk, hoping with books to cure myself of the bewilderments of this day.