r was amusing; but she is very discreet, as I
have said before, and she ventured nothing save a meek, "It's very late,
Miss Butterworth," which was an unnecessary remark, as she soon saw.

I do not like to obtrude my aristocratic tendencies too much into this
narrative, but when I found myself in the streets alone with Lena, I
could not help feeling some secret qualms lest my conduct savored of
impropriety. But the thought that I was working in the cause of truth
and justice came to sustain me, and before I had gone two blocks, I felt
as much at home under the midnight skies as if I were walking home from
church on a Sunday afternoon.

There is a certain drug-store on Third Avenue where I like to deal, and
towards this I ostensibly directed my steps. But I took pains to go by
the way of Lexington Avenue and Twenty-seventh Street, and upon reaching
the block where this mysterious couple were seen, gave all my attention
to the possible hiding-places it offered.

Lena, who had followed me like my shadow, and who was evidently too
dumfounded at my freak to speak, drew up to my side as we were half-way
down it and seized me tremblingly by the arm.

"Two men are coming," said she.

"I am not afraid of men," was my sharp rejoinder. But I told a most
abominable lie; for I am afraid of them in such places and under such
circumstances, though not under ordinary conditions, and never where the
tongue is likely to be the only weapon employed.

The couple who were approaching us now seemed to be in a merry mood. But
when they saw us keep to our own side of the way, they stopped their
chaffing and allowed us to go by, with just a mocking word or two.

"Sarah ought to be very much obliged to you," whispered Lena.

At the corner of Third Avenue I paused. I had seen nothing so far but
bare stoops and dark area-ways. Nothing to suggest a place for the
disposal of such cumbersome articles as these persons had made way with.
Had the avenue anything better to offer? I stopped under the gas-lamp at
the corner to consider, notwithstanding Lena's gentle pull towards the
drug-store. Looking to left and right and over the muddy crossings, I
sought for inspiration. An almost obstinate belief in my own theory led
me to insist in my own mind that they had encountered no old woman, and
consequently had not dropped their bundles in the open street. I even
entered into an argument about it, standing there with the cable cars
whistling by me an