for distrust in regard to the latter. At the conclusion of the
prayer several of the little audience went out, leaving him to begin
his discourse under such discouraging circumstances, added to his
natural and agonizing diffidence. Knowing that my presence on these
occasions increased his embarrassment, I had stationed myself in a
dusky place near the door, and now stole softly out.

On my return to the tavern the tragedy was already concluded; and,
being a feeble one in itself and indifferently performed, it left so
much the better chance for the Story-Teller. The bar was thronged
with customers, the toddy-stick keeping a continual tattoo; while in
the hall there was a broad, deep, buzzing sound, with an occasional
peal of impatient thunder,--all symptoms of all overflowing house
and an eager audience. I drank a glass of wine-and-water, and stood
at the side scene conversing with a young person of doubtful sex.
If a gentleman, how could he have performed the singing girl the
night before in No Song, no Supper? Or, if a lady, why did she
enact Young Norval, and now wear a green coat and white pantaloons
in the character of Little Pickle? In either case the dress was
pretty and the wearer bewitching; so that, at the proper moment, I
stepped forward with a gay heart and a hold one; while the orchestra
played a tune that had resounded at many a country ball, and the
curtain, as it rose, discovered something like a country bar-room.
Such a scene was well enough adapted to such a tale.

The orchestra of our little theatre consisted of two fiddles and a
clarinet; but, if the whole harmony of the Tremont had been there,
it might have swelled in vain beneath the tumult of applause that
greeted me. The good people of the town, knowing that the world
contained innumerable persons of celebrity undreamed of by them,