ore the evening was over, Pamela replied to a remark of
Samantha's,--

"I don't care. He's taller than I am, and I'd ever so much rather have a
frock-coat walk beside me to meeting."

CHAPTER III.

A MEMBER OF ONE OF THE OLDEST FAMILIES MEETS A YOUNG GENTLEMAN FROM THE
CITY.

Dick Lee had been more than half right about the village being a
dangerous place for him, with such an unusual amount of clothing over
his ordinary uniform.

The very dogs, every one of whom was an old acquaintance, barked at him
on his way home that night; and, proud as were his ebony father and
mother of the improvement in their son's appearance, they yielded to his
earnest entreaties, first, that he might wear his present all the next
day, and, second, that he might betake himself to the "bay" early in the
morning, and so keep out of sight "till he got used to it."

"On'y, you jist mind wot yer about!" said his mother, "and see't you
keep dem clo'es from gettin' wet. I jist can't 'foard to hab dem spiled
right away."

The fault with Dab Kinzer's old suit, after all, had lain mainly in its
size rather than its materials; for Mrs. Kinzer was too good a manager
to be really stingy.

Dick succeeded in reaching the boat-landing without falling in with any
one who seemed disposed to laugh at him; but there, right on the wharf,
was a white boy of about his own age, and he felt a good deal like
backing out.

"Nebber seen him afore, either," said Dick to himself. "Den I guess I
ain't afeard ob him."

The stranger was a somewhat short and thick-set, but bright and
active-looking boy, with a pair of very keen, greenish-gray eyes. But,
after all, the first word he spoke to poor Dick was,--

"Hullo, clothes! Where are you going with all that boy?"

"I knowed it, I knowed it!" groaned Dick. But he answered as sharply as
he knew how,--

"I's goin' a-fishin'. Any ob youah business?"--

"Where'd you learn how to fish?" the stranger asked, "Down South? Didn't
know they had any there."

"Nebbah was down Souf," was the somewhat surly reply.

"Father run away, did he?"

"He nebber was down dar, nudder."

"Nor his father?"

"'Tain't no business ob yourn," said Dick, "but we's allers lived right
heah, on dis bay."

"Guess not," said the white boy knowingly. Dick was right, nevertheless;
for his people had been slaves among the very earliest Dutch settlers,
and had never "lived South" at all. He was now busily getting one of the
b