him in such a touching unaffected way, that everybody is sorry for her,
and we all simply ruin ourselves in tickets. I do hope that boy's nearly
educated!"

"Mrs. Amyot? Mrs. Amyot?" I repeated. "Is she _still_ educating her son?"

"Oh, do you know about her? Has she been at it long? There's some comfort
in that, for I suppose when the boy's provided for the poor thing will be
able to take a rest--and give us one!"

She laughed and held out her hand.

"Here's your ticket. Did you say _tickets_--two? Oh, thanks. Of course you
needn't go."

"But I mean to go. Mrs. Amyot is an old friend of mine."

"Do you really? That's awfully good of you. Perhaps I'll go too if I can
persuade Charlie and the others to come. And I wonder"--in a well-directed
aside--"if your friend--?"

I telegraphed her under cover of the dusk that my friend was of too recent
standing to be drawn into her charitable toils, and she masked her mistake
under a rattle of friendly adjurations not to be late, and to be sure to
keep a seat for her, as she had quite made up her mind to go even if
Charlie and the others wouldn't.

The flutter of her skirts subsided in the distance, and my neighbor, who
had half turned away to light a cigar, made no effort to reopen the
conversation. At length, fearing he might have overheard the allusion to