ou go right into the
hall, and knock on the first door to the right, and he'll come--or
some one."

The door to the large square entry stood wide open, and through
another door opposite, which was ajar, I saw long tables, and heard
the clatter of dishes being removed, while a strong smell of dinner
filled the air. I knocked at the door on the right, but no one
appeared. Finally, a chubby girl of about ten summers came running
round the corner of the house and into the front door. She was eating
an apple, and gazed at me wonderingly.

"Is Mr. Armstrong in?" I asked.

"Yes, sir; he's about somewhere. Walk into the parlor, please, and sit
down, and I'll find him."

I entered the room on the right, which was a bleak and
official-looking apartment,--apparently the reception-room where
parents held interviews with the instructor of youth, or tore
themselves from the parting embraces of homesick sons at the beginning
of a new term. There is always something depressing about the parlor
of an "institution" of any kind, and I could not help feeling sorry
for Armstrong, as I waited for him, seated on a sofa covered with
faded rep. At length the door of an inner room opened, and the
principal of the Pestalozzian Institute waddled across the floor
with his hand held out, crying:

"Franky Polisson, how are you?"

He certainly had grown stout, and his light hair had retreated from
the forehead. He wore glasses and was dressed in a suit of rusty
black, with a high vest which gave him a ministerial look--a much more
ministerial look than Berkeley had. His pantaloons presented that
appearance which tailors describe as "kneeing out." He sat down and we
chatted for half an hour. The little girl had followed him into the
room, and behind her came another three or four years her junior. The
older one stood by his side, and he kept his arm around her, while he
held the younger on his knee. They were both pretty, healthy-looking
children, and kept their eyes fixed on "the man."

"Are those your own kids?" I inquired presently.

"Yes, two of them. I have six, you know," he answered, with a fond
sigh: "five girls and one boy. The lasses are rather in the majority."

"I heard you were quite a _paterfamilias_," I said. "Won't you come
and kiss me, little girl?"

To this proposal the elder answered by burying her head bashfully in
her father's shoulder, while the smaller one simply opened her eyes
wider and stared with more fixed inte