a mind to go back and ask Mrs. Scott to come out with me
to protect me from the impertinence of the police!"

"Who?" he asked, with wide-open, wondering eyes, "you will go back to
who?"

"To Mrs. Scott," I snapped.

"Why," said he, "there's no Mrs. Scott there."

"No?" I questioned satirically. "No? Well, as I have just engaged board
from Mrs. Scott, I venture to differ with you."

"Good Lord, Miss," the man said, "Mrs. William Scott's been dead these
nine months or more. That's no place for honest people now. Why--why,
we're watchin' the house this moment, hoping to catch that woman's
jail-bird son, who has broken jail in Louisville--don't look so white,
Miss!"

"But--but," I whispered, "I--I was sent here by a friend--I--I have
engaged a room there! Oh, what shall I do?"

"That's all right, Miss," reassuringly answered the policeman, "I'll give
up the room for you. You ain't the only one that has come here expecting
to find Mrs. Scott in the house. You don't need to go back to the door;"
and the theatre being in full view, in an agony of humiliation and
terror, I flung myself into its friendly, just-opened office, where Mr.
Macaulay presently found me shaking like a leaf and almost unable to make
plain my experience.

He was furious, and finding my name was mentioned in the letter of
introduction to Mrs. Scott, and that "Mrs. Scott" had retained it, he
called the policeman and together they went to the house and demanded the
letter back. It was given up, but most unwillingly, as the woman, with
the superstition of all gambling people, looked upon it as a
luck-breeder, a mascot; and an hour later, by Mr. Macaulay's aid, I had
found two wee rooms, whose carpets would welcome my trunks as hiders of
holes--rooms that were dull, even dingy, but had nevertheless securely
sheltered honest poverty for long years past, and could do as much for
years to come.

I mention this unpleasant incident simply to show how utterly unexpected
are some of the pitfalls that make dangerous the pathway of honest
girlhood. To show, too, that utter ignorance of evil is in itself a
danger. The interview that bewildered me would have been, for instance, a
danger signal to my mother, who would, too, having seen how the richness
of furniture contradicted outside shabbiness, have had her suspicions
aroused. I noted that fact, but not knowing of gambling being unlawful
and secretly carried on, my observation was of no service to me, as it