stepping back again. "It all depends upon the way you look at those
things. Good-night."

"Good-night."

The three men paused, shook each other's hands silently, and separated,
Jack sauntering slowly back to his stateroom.


II.


The educational establishment of Mrs. Mix and Madame Bance, situated
in the best quarter of Sacramento and patronized by the highest state
officials and members of the clergy, was a pretty if not an imposing
edifice. Although surrounded by a high white picket fence and entered
through a heavily boarded gate, its balconies festooned with jasmine
and roses, and its spotlessly draped windows as often graced with fresh,
flower-like faces, were still plainly and provokingly visible above the
ostentatious spikes of the pickets. Nevertheless, Mr. Jack Hamlin, who
had six months before placed his niece, Miss Sophonisba Brown, under
its protecting care, felt a degree of uneasiness, even bordering on
timidity, which was new to that usually self-confident man. Remembering
how his first appearance had fluttered this dovecote and awakened a
severe suspicion in the minds of the two principals, he had discarded
his usual fashionable attire and elegantly fitting garments for a rough,
homespun suit, supposed to represent a homely agriculturist, but which
had the effect of transforming him into an adorable Strephon, infinitely
more dangerous in his rustic shepherd-like simplicity. He had also
shaved off his silken mustache for the same prudential reasons, but had