her down from his shoulder, when she began to cry, liking her position.

"For shame!" cried Naomi, "when Mr. Macnally has been so good to you!"

"These second-hand mothers are hard upon little girls, ar'n't they?" he said, kissing the little hand that clung about his neck, and not offering to take her down. Naomi blushed.

"Sophia always tells me to make her mind. She wouldn't trust her to me if I didn't."

Thereupon Baby, seeing how much was to be got by crying, cried, and demanded to be taken up upon the other shoulder.

"You see," exclaimed Naomi, "somebody must be firm."

The tutor and I both laughed; I evidently didn't count for much in my household; but though I laughed, I did not like it very much.

"If your great-grandmother Naomi will permit," he said, with a bow in the direction of that young person, "I shall be very happy to have you on the other shoulder."

"Oh, yes," cried Naomi, forgetting her wrongs in a new thought. "And dance an Irish jig with them, as you did that day on the beach! Please, Mr. Macnally, it would be so jolly. Please, mayn't he? He won't make much noise."

"Why don't you ask Sophia?" I said. She was flying off, taking me seriously, when I called her back. "It isn't necessary to ask Sophia this time," I said.

"Then he may? Oh, what fun. Mr. Macnally, you will, won't you?"

"I must ask you to excuse me," he said, rather shortly.

"But the Baby?" said Naomi, snubbed. "Won't you let her have a ride on your shoulder, anyhow?"

Mr. Macnally knelt down like a camel, while I put Baby on his other shoulder. He held each one by the hand, and rose up, balancing them carefully. They screamed with delight while he gave them a ride through the circuit of our apartments. There was a great row while they were out in the dining-room; I didn't know but that the Irish jig was beginning, but they were all subdued and respectable when they reappeared in the doorway of the parlor. To get through this door, it was necessary for the camel to go down on his knees again, which he did with great ease. He had the sort of figure that gave you the impression it would be no inconvenience to him to roll himself up like an India-rubber ball and be shot off the moon; he would surely land on his feet in South Berwick if he meant to appear there.

"Now," he said, after another tour of the disordered little parlor, going down on one knee before Naomi, "if your great-grandmother will have the goodness to bear a hand-"

"I don't think that's fair," muttered Naomi, a little nettled. "I've had the care of them a great deal—”

“I know," he said, kissing one little scorched face and then another, as he set them down, "and now I think, Naomi, if you'll get your cloak and hat we will say good-night."

Naomi, and the children after her, ran down-stairs to the kitchen, which seemed to have served for Naomi's dressing-room, and where, no doubt, the judicious Sophia had put her wet water-proof before the fire when she first came in.

The stranger and I began to feel a little awkwardness, after the children went away. We had really not addressed each other directly, except in the matter of the letters, all the time he had been here. He had a downlooking, rather shy way when it came to talking to me, that seemed like a very young man. And yet, he was not a very young man, unless twenty-six or twentyeight is very young; one felt sure he was as much as that. His lithe, slight figure, in the inevitable blue flannel clothes, made him look very boyish, but his face, when you took that into account, gave a different estimate. His cheeks were flushed now with the fire and with the romp; his eyes were keen and bright, when you could get a gleam from them; his mouth was restless with mirth that it seemed an effort to subdue, and yet I had a feeling that I was talking to a man who was at least my equal in age, my senior in experience of life.

I attempted some commonplace, as a woman is sure to do, first, while he stood by the table, looking down, attempting nothing. It was about the storm, no doubt, and when it was answered, there was another pause. The disordered room seemed to strike him.

"It has been rather unconventional for a first call," he said, not looking up, but a smile spoiling the decorum of his face. "Like a first call from a hurricane," he added, moving a chair back against the window, and setting straight a little table that had been whirled out of its corner by Naomi.

"I don't mind,” I said. "It keeps Sophia in good humor to have plenty of things to put in order. It's the best thing that can happen."

"Far be it from me, then," he said fervently, put

ting the chair and table back to a fraction of the same angle in which they had been standing. He had a delightful little accent, English or Irish, or perhaps Canadian; I quite liked to hear him speak, and found myself speculating as to whether I couldn't speak that way if I tried. Then Naomi and the children came tumbling into the room again, and waterproofs and umbrellas and overshoes were all that came into discussion. As the tutor knelt down to light his lantern at the fire, Maidy came up and pressed close to his side and slipped her little hand under his arm, and watched him silently. It was such an astonishing action for the shy child. When he went away, she followed him to the door and held up her face to be kissed, though the wind nearly swept her back into the room. Then she ran to the window and pressed her face against the pane, and watched the little spark as it wavered along through the darkness, in the direction of Happy-go-lucky's hospitable lights.

CHAPTER VI.

TEA, TREATED UNCONVENTIONALLY.

""Twas nice, of course, to hear from you
About their wild, Bohemian ways;

One likes to know how people do

Who are not in the world.—”

Olrig Grange.

HAD meant to go to pay my first call at Happy-goLucky, a mountain of crape; even getting out my best dress and veil from the damp little closet in the wall where they spent their days. But it was too incongruous and absurd; I could not fancy myself dragging them through the dust of the road and the damp of the grass, and appearing with dignity to make a visit of ceremony upon my landlady. So I gave the Shinnecock my flannel dress to brush with extra care for the occasion, and taking Maidy for companion, went unconventionally across the fields in the direction of the house. When we went in at the gate two or three great dogs bounced out at us, sending Maidy into paroxysms of fright, but as many men came out from stable and garden and carriage-house and called them off.

When I got to the steps of the house, I was again in doubt. Every stage of the visit had been attended with doubt; whether I should come morning or afternoon, whether I should wear crape or flannel, and now