is
morning that I should be writing to you from the station-house
before night. I'll tell you how it happened." [Here follows a
detailed account, which is omitted, as the reader is already
acquainted with all the circumstances.] "Of course they will wonder
at the boarding-house where I am. If Miss Peyton or Mr. Clifton
inquires after me to-night, you can say that I am detained by
business of importance. That's true enough. I wish it wasn't. As
soon as dinner is over, I wish you'd come and see me. I don't know
if you can, not being acquainted with the rules of this hotel. I
shan't stop here again very soon, if I can help it. There's a woman
in the next cell, who was arrested for fighting. She is swearing
frightfully. It almost makes me sick to be in such a place. It's
pretty hard to have this happen to me just when I was getting along
so well. But I hope it'll all come out right. Your true friend,

"DICK.

"P.S.--I've given my watch and chain to the officer to keep for me.
Gold watches aint fashionable here, and I didn't want them to think
me putting on airs.

"_Station-House, Franklin Street._"

After Dick had written these letters he was left to himself. His
reflections, as may readily be supposed, were not the most pleasant.
What would they think at the boarding-house, if they should find what
kind of business it was that had detained him! Even if he was acquitted,
some might suppose that he was really guilty. But there was a worse
contingency. He might be unable to prove his innocence, and might be
found guilty. In that case he would be sent to the Island. Dick
shuddered at the thought. Just when he began to feel himself
respectable, it was certainly bad to meet with such hard luck. What,
too, would Mr. Greyson and Ida think? He had been so constant at the
Sunday school that his absence would be sure to be noticed, and he knew
that his former mode of life would make his guilt more readily believed
in the present instance.

"If Ida should think me a pick-pocket!" thought poor Dick, and the
thought made him miserable enough. The fact was, that Ida, by her
vivacity and lively manners, and her evident partiality for his society,
had quite won upon Dick, who considered her by all odds the nicest girl
he had ever seen. I don't mean to say that Dick was in love,--at least
not yet. Both he and Ida were too young for that; but