discipline obtained; while, on the other hand, had the
educational theories of the parental assembly prevailed, she would have
ere this shone an etherealized essence in the angelic host. In either
event she would have "ceased from troubling," which was the general
Greyport idea of higher education. A paper read before our Literary
Society on "Sarah Walker and other infantile diseases," was referred to
in the catalogue as "Walker, Sarah, Prevention and Cure," while the
usual burlesque legislation of our summer season culminated in the Act
entitled "An Act to amend an Act entitled an Act for the abatement of
Sarah Walker." As she was hereafter exclusively to be fed "on the
PROVISIONS of this Act," some idea of its general tone may be gathered.
It was a singular fact in this point of her history that her natural
progenitors not only offered no resistance to the doubtful celebrity of
their offspring, but, by hopelessly accepting the situation, to some
extent POSED as Sarah Walker's victims. Mr. and Mrs. Walker were known
to be rich, respectable, and indulgent to their only child. They
themselves had been evolved from a previous generation of promiscuously
acquired wealth into the repose of inherited property, but it was
currently accepted that Sarah had "cast back" and reincarnated some
waif on the deck of an emigrant ship at the beginning of the century.

Such was the child separated from me by this portentous history, a
narrow passage, and a closed nursery door. Presently, however, the
door was partly opened again as if to admit the air. The crying had
ceased, but in its place the monotonous Voice of Conscience, for the
moment personated by Sarah Walker's nursemaid, kept alive a drowsy
recollection of Sarah Walker's transgressions.

"You see," said the Voice, "what a dreadful thing it is for a little
girl to go on as you do. I am astonished at you, Sarah Walker. So is
everybody; so is the good ladies next door; so is the kind gentleman
opposite; so is all! Where you expect to go to, 'Evin only knows! How
you expect to be forgiven, saints alone can tell! But so it is always,
and yet you keep it up. And wouldn't you like it different, Sarah
Walker? Wouldn't you like to have everybody love you? Wouldn't you
like them good ladies next door, and that nice gentleman opposite, all
to kinder rise up and say, 'Oh, what a dear good little girl Sarah
Walker is?'" The interpolation of a smacking sound of lips, as if