eachers.
The relaxed features and apologetic attitude of Madame Bance and Miss
Mix showed that Mr. Hamlin had unconsciously achieved a triumph.

He might not have been as pleased to know that his extraordinary
performance had solved a difficulty, effaced his other graces, and
enabled them to place him on the moral pedestal of a mere musician, to
whom these eccentricities were allowable and privileged. He shared the
admiration extended by the young ladies to their music teacher, which
was always understood to be a sexless enthusiasm and a contagious
juvenile disorder. It was also a fine advertisement for the organ.
Madame Bance smiled blandly, improved the occasion by thanking Mr.
Hamlin for having given the scholars a gratuitous lesson on the
capabilities of the instrument, and was glad to be able to give Miss
Brown a half-holiday to spend with her accomplished relative. Miss Brown
was even now upstairs, putting on her hat and mantle. Jack was relieved.
Sophy would not attempt to cry on the street.

Nevertheless, when they reached it and the gate closed behind them, he
again became uneasy. The girl's clouded face and melancholy manner were
not promising. It also occurred to him that he might meet some one who
knew him and thus compromise her. This was to be avoided at all hazards.
He began with forced gayety:--

"Well, now, where shall we go?"

She slightly raised her tear-dimmed eyes. "Where you please--I don't
care."

"There isn't any show going on here, is there?" He had a vague idea of a
circus or menagerie--himself behind her in the shadow of the box.

"I don't know of any."

"Or any restaurant--or cake shop?"

"There's a place where the girls go to get candy on Main Street. Some of
them are there now."

Jack shuddered; this was not to be thought of. "But where do you walk?"

"Up and down Main Street."

"Where everybody can see you?" said Jack, scandalized.

The girl nodded.

They walked on in silence for a few moments. Then a bright idea struck
Mr. Hamlin. He suddenly remembered that in one of his many fits
of impulsive generosity and largesse he had given to an old negro
retainer--whose wife had nursed him through a dangerous illness--a house
and lot on the river bank. He had been told that they had opened a small
laundry or wash-house. It occurred to him that a stroll there and a
call upon "Uncle Hannibal and Aunt Chloe" combined the propriety and
respectability due to the young person he was wi