think we had better go home at all events, and home we came the first week
in September, to the roasting, dusty city. But I did not then know that I
was perhaps drawn back for a purpose; and oh, dear Winnie, there may be
something in papa's visions, after all."

"He has had a good many of them," I said.

"So he has," assented Bessie; "and I was inclined to be impatient at this
one, since it brought me home in the heat, and the house seemed so lonely,
because Mrs. Tanner was still in the country with her married daughter."

"She having received no spectral warning," I hinted.

"Oh dear! no. Mrs. Tanner never dreams: she's opposed to it. Well, the
first Sunday was so warm that I took up _Solemn Thoughts in Verse_ instead
of the Mariners'; and after I had read eight pages, it really seemed as if
I had better have tried the heat out of doors, it was getting so gloomy
within. So I got up and dressed, meaning to walk out and meet papa, and
return with him. I don't know whether it was the _Solemn Thoughts_ that
confused me, or whether I was not paying attention, but I actually lost my
way by turning at the wrong corner, and so came down Barton street toward
a little chapel that I had often noticed before. Two dreadfully red-faced
and short-haired little boys were at the entrance by the small iron gate.
They had disagreed about something, I suppose, just as I came up, and they
instantly began to fight, with the wickedest determination visible in
their freckled little faces. At first, they kicked at each other, and
growled out some awful words without the least sense, but with a great
deal of profanity in them, and then they laid down their little books and
tracts, and apparently tried to pull each other's head off. Of course it
made me quite wretched to see them hurt each other in that shocking way,