t you said, over your full name, while as yet
you knew absolutely nothing. And when I realized that, guilty or
innocent, you meant to stand by me, I--well, you and my blessed mother
live in a little corner of my heart, just by your two loyal selves."

And when he left me he carried on either cheek as affectionate a kiss as
I knew how to put there, and again, and for the last time, we parted in a
gale of laughter, as he cried: "You would have seen me in the bottomless
pit before you would have done that in Cincinnati!"

"Oh, well," I replied, "we both preferred quarreling to kissing in those
days!"

"Speak for yourself!" he laughed, and so we parted for all time.

I had returned to my work in Cincinnati; had thanked the Washington and
San Francisco managers for their offers of engagements, and was putting
in some spare moments in worrying about the summer, when (without meaning
to be irreverent) God opened a door right before me. Never, since I had
closed a small geography at school, had I heard of "Halifax," save as a
substitute for another place beginning with H, but here, all suddenly, I
was invited to Halifax--not sent there in anger, for, oh, incredible! for
a four, perhaps six, weeks' summer engagement. Was I not happy? Was I not
grateful? One silver half-dollar did I recklessly give away to the Irish
washerwoman, who had said: "God niver shuts one dure without openin'
anither!" I could not help it, and she, being in trouble at the time,
declared, with hope rising in her tired old eyes, that she would "at onct
burn a waxen candle before the blissed Virgin!" Poor soul! I hope her
loving offering found favor in the eyes of the gentle Saint she honored!

I had a benefit in Cincinnati before the season closed, and so it came
about that I was able to get my mother a spring gown and bonnet that she
might go home in proper state to Cleveland for a visit; while I turned my
face toward Halifax, the picturesque, to play a summer engagement, and
then to make my way to New York and find a resting-place for my foot in
some hotel, while I searched for rooms to which my mother might be
summoned, for I had determined I could board no longer.

If we had rooms we could make a little home in them. If we had still to
go hungry, we could at least hunger after our own fashion, and endure our
privations in decent privacy. So, with plans all made, I landed at
Halifax and felt a shock of surprise, followed by a pang of
homesickness, a