y name he had been ignorant until that day,
Mark Trefethen directed his attention to its various places and
objects of interest. Of one small but handsome stone building,
surrounded by grass and shade-trees, he said:

"There's where the swells get's their beer."

Peveril instantly knew it for a club-house, and, with a pang of regret
for the lost comforts of such an establishment, glanced enviously at
its cosey interior, disclosed through open windows.

At length they reached the modest cottage, built on the plan of a
hundred others, that Mark Trefethen rented from the company and called
his home. The room into which Peveril was ushered was scrupulously
clean and neat, but seemed to him painfully bare and cheerless. It was
lighted by a single, unshaded lamp, that stood in the middle of an
oilcloth-covered table laid for supper. Half a dozen cheap wooden
chairs and a sewing-machine of inferior grade completed its
furnishing. The new-comer had only time for a single glance at these
things as he entered the door, before his recent acquaintance of the
train, who now seemed almost like an old friend, sprang forward with
outstretched hand, exclaiming:

"I'm so glad you've come, for I was afraid father might not find you,
or you might get tired of waiting, or that something might have
happened to take you some other place. I would have gone back myself,
only father wouldn't have it that way, and claimed 'twas his place to
fetch you."

"Surely, son; and why not? Could I do less than give the first welcome
to one who has done for us what Mr. Peril has? Mother, take a step and
shake hands wi' him who saved our boy to us this day. I couldn't
believe it till I seen him hit 'Blacky' such a blow as but one other
in all Red Jacket has ever struck. What do you think of one
ninety-five for a record?"

"Oh, father! you surely didn't take him--"

But Tom's words were lost in the heartfelt though somewhat trying
greeting that Peveril was at that moment receiving from Mrs.
Trefethen. She was a large woman, whose ample form was unconfined by
stay or lace, and with whom to "take a step" was evidently an
exertion. That she was also of an emotional nature was shown by the
tears that rolled in little well-defined channels down her cheeks as
she made an elephantine courtesy before her guest.

"Mister Peril, sir," she said, in a voice that seemed to bubble up
through an overflow of tears, "may you never hexperience the feelinks
of a moth