Hotel, but an Inn, and it had a brand-new old-fashioned swinging sign before its door; its front had been cut up into several

lady violinist, was giving the closing piece of the afternoon concert. The dining-room was painted a self-righteous olive-green; it was thoroughly netted against the flies, which used to roost in myriads on the cut-pa

ntically pathetic interest. It was, of course, the way past the Desmond cottage, which, when he came in sight of it round the shoulder of upland where it stood, was curiously strange, curiously fam

were opened behind their nettings for supper. At this cheerfuler moment he found the head waiter much more conversible than at the hour of his ret

the Desmonds. The head waiter was rather vague about their past; but he was distinct enough about their present, and said the young la

ed. I thought they played charmingly, and I was sorr

r them again to-night; they're going to play for the hop. I don't

she carried gracefully, but it was against

either in the fact or for the effect it

tisfactorily as coul

e and fork at the place opposite, and blushed. "But you'll hear her to-night yourself," h

rather than come upon the charity of his friends or the hard-earned savings of a poor old father, what had any one to say against it? Gaites had nothing to say against it; and yet that blush, that embarrassment of a man who had pulled out his chair for him, in relation to

ly varied pipes from beyond the freight-depot. Their youth invited his own to look them up, and he followed round to the back of the depot, where he came upon a sight which had, perhaps from the waning light, a heightened charm. Against the curtain of low pines which had been gradually creeping back upon the depot ever since the woods were cut away to make room for it, four girls were posed in attitudes instinctively dramatic and vivi

d to. Three of the men stepped aside, and one of them jumped into the front of the wagon and gathered up the reins from the horses'

the girls, settling at l

ot to do

lis, you m

l. You've got to keep

wheel, and then stood staying herself against the piano-case, with a final lamentation of "Oh, it's a shame! I'll never speak to any of you again! How perfectly mean! Oh!" The last exclamation signalized the start of the horses at a brisk mountain trot, which the driver presentl

e stayed him. He scarcely troubled himself to keep at a fit remove from the rest; and as he followed in the deepening twilight he felt a sw

by the evening breeze (in spite of luminous hands held near the chimney to shelter them), amidst the joyful applause of all the girls and the laughter of the men. A sound of hammering rose, and then a sound of boards rending from the clutch of nails, and then a sound of pieces thrown loose

ot till the last cry of gratitude had been answered by the unanimous disclaimer of t