which infused her gaze with a touching femininity. She
wore a long loose garment which fell without a fold from chin to foot,
and in her arms she seemed to carry something.

Never before had I seen so beautiful a woman. As I was contemplating
her, with respect but yet with a masculine intentness I could not quite
suppress, two or three other persons came in. And now I began to notice
that the eyes of all these people turned mainly one way, and that was
toward the clock. Another small circumstance likewise drew my attention.
Whenever any one entered,--and there were one or two additional arrivals
during the five minutes preceding the striking of the hour,--a frown
settled for an instant on every brow, giving to each and all a similar
look, for the interpretation of which I lacked the key. Yet not on every
brow either. There was one which remained undisturbed and showed only a
grand patience.

As the hands of the big clock neared the point of eight, a furtive
smile appeared on more than one face; and when the hour rang out, a sigh
of satisfaction swept through the room, to which the little old lawyer
responded with a worldly-wise grunt, as he moved from his place and
proceeded to the door.

This he had scarcely shut when a chorus of voices rose from without.
Three or four lingerers had pushed their way as far as the gate, only to
see the door of the house shut in their faces.

"Too late!" growled old man Luke from between the locks of his long
beard.

"Too late!" shrieked the woman who had come so near being late herself.

"Too late!" smoothly acquiesced the lawyer, locking and bolting the door
with a deft and assured hand.

But the four or five persons who thus found themselves barred out did
not accept without a struggle the decision of the more fortunate ones
assembled within. More than one hand began pounding on the door, and we
could hear cries of, "The train was behind time!" "Your clock is fast!"
"You are cheating us; you want it all for yourselves!" "We will have the
law on you!" and other bitter adjurations unintelligible to me from my
ignorance of the circumstances which called them forth.

But the wary old lawyer simply shook his head and answered nothing;
whereat a murmur of gratification rose from within, and a howl of almost
frenzied dismay from without, which latter presently received point from
a startling vision which now appeared at the casement where the lights
burned. A man's face looked in, a