t about among them, and danced with
the sisters and cousins of several men who seemed superior to the lost
condition of their kinswomen; these were nice fellows enough, but doomed
by their grinding, or digging, or their want of worldly wisdom, to a
place among the jays, when they really had some qualifications for a
nobler standing. He had a very good time, and he was enjoying himself
in his devotion to a lively young brunette whom he was making laugh with
his jokes about some of the others, when his eye was caught by a group
of ladies who advanced among the jays with something of that collective
intrepidity and individual apprehension characteristic of people in
slumming. They had the air of not knowing what might happen to them,
but the adventurous young Boston matron in charge of the girls kept on a
bold front behind her lorgnette, and swept the strange company she
found herself in with an unshrinking eye as she led her band among the
promenaders, and past the couples seated along the walls. She hesitated
a moment as her glance fell upon Jeff, and then she yielded, at whatever
risk, to the comfort of finding a known face among so many aliens. "Why,
Mr. Durgin!" she called out. "Bessie, here's Mr. Durgin," and she turned
to the girl, who was in her train, as Jeff had perceived by something
finer than the senses from the first.

He rose from the side of his brunette, whose brother was standing near,
and shook hands with the adventurous young matron, who seemed suddenly
much better acquainted with him than he had ever thought her, and with
Bessie Lynde; the others were New York girls, and the matron presented
him. "Are you going on?" she asked, and the vague challenge with the
smile that accompanied it was sufficient invitation for him.

"Why, I believe so," he said, and he turned to take leave of his pretty
brunette; but she had promptly vanished with her brother, and he was
spared the trouble of getting rid of her. He would have been equal to
much more for the sake of finding himself with Bessie Lynde again, whose
excitement he could see burning in her eyes, though her thick complexion
grew neither brighter nor paler. He did not know what quality of
excitement it might be, but he said, audaciously: "It's a good while
since we met!" and he was sensible that his audacity availed.

"Is it?" she asked. He put himself at her side, and he did not leave her
again till he went to dress for the struggle around the Tree. He fo