pulses of the next in age.

"My, my," she simply said as Ann Eliza ended. "Keep still now, Arthur:
Miss Bunner don't want you to jump up and down on her foot to-day. And
what are you gaping at, Johnny? Run right off and play," she added,
turning sternly to her eldest, who, because he was the least naughty,
usually bore the brunt of her wrath against the others.

"Well, perhaps Mr. Hawkins can help you," Mrs. Hawkins continued
meditatively, while the children, after scattering at her bidding,
returned to their previous pursuits like flies settling down on the
spot from which an exasperated hand has swept them. "I'll send him right
round the minute he comes in, and you can tell him the whole story. I
wouldn't wonder but what he can find that Mrs. Hochmuller's address in
the d'rectory. I know they've got one where he works."

"I'd be real thankful if he could," Ann Eliza murmured, rising from her
seat with the factitious sense of lightness that comes from imparting a
long-hidden dread.

X

Mr. Hawkins proved himself worthy of his wife's faith in his capacity.
He learned from Ann Eliza as much as she could tell him about Mrs.
Hochmuller and returned the next evening with a scrap of paper bearing
her address, beneath which Johnny (the family scribe) had written in a
large round hand the names of the streets that led there from the ferry.

Ann Eliza lay awake all that night, repeating over and over again the
directions Mr. Hawkins had given her. He was a kind man, and she knew
he would willingly have gone with her to Hoboken; indeed she read in his
timid eye the half-formed intention of offering to accompany her--but on
such an errand she preferred to go alone.

The next Sunday, accordingly, she set out early, and without much
trouble found her way to the ferry. Nearly a year had passed since her
previous visit to Mrs. Hochmuller, and a chilly April breeze smote her
face as she stepped on the boat. Most of the passengers were huddled
together in the cabin, and Ann Eliza shrank into its obscurest corner,
shivering under the thin black mantle which had seemed so hot in July.
She began to feel a little bewildered as she stepped ashore, but a
paternal policeman put her into the right car, and as in a dream she
found herself retracing the way to Mrs. Hochmuller's door. She had told
the conductor the name of the street at which she wished to get out,
and presently she stood in the biting wind at the corner near the