a in a conscientious fashion, for the benefit of the
guest of the day. He was a modest young fellow with a nose rather too
large for his face, a long upper lip, and frank blue eyes. He made
himself agreeable to one of the Cabinet girls, on the front seat, while
Tommy, just behind him, had Miss Van Harlem and bliss for his portion.

The old streets, the toppling roofs, the musty warehouses, the uneven
pavement, all pleased the young creatures out in the sunshine. They made
merry over the ancient ball-room, where Washington had asked a far-away
ancestress of Beatoun to dance; and they decorously walked through the
old church.

IT happened in the church. Mrs. Carriswood was behind the others; so she
saw them come in, the same little old couple of the Capitol.

In the chancel, Beatoun was explaining; beside Beatoun shone a curly
black head that they knew.

Mrs. Carriswood sat in one of the high old pews. Through a crack she
could look into the next pew; and there they stood. She heard the old
man: "Whist, Molly, let's be getting out of this! HE is here with all
his grand friends. Don't let us be interrupting him."

The old woman's voice was so like Tommy's that it made Mrs. Carriswood
start. Very softly she spoke: "I only want to look at him a minute, Pat,
jest a minute. I ain't seen him for so long."

"And is it any longer for you than for me?" retorted the husband. "Ye
know what ye promised if I'd be taking you here, unbeknownst. Don't look
his way! Look like ye was a stranger to him. Don't let us be mortifying
him wid our country ways. Like as not 'tis the prisidint, himself, he
is colloguein' wid, this blessed minute. Shtep back and be a stranger to
him, woman!"

A stranger to him, his own mother! But she stepped back; she turned her
patient face. Then--Tommy saw her.

A wave of red flushed all over his face. He took two steps down the
aisle, and caught the little figure in his arms.

"Why, mother?" he cried, "why, mother, where did you drop from?"

And before Mrs. Carriswood could speak she saw him step back and push
young Sackville forward, crying, "This is my father, this is the boy
that knew your grandmother."

He did it so easily; he was so entirely unaffected, so perfectly
unconscious, that there was nothing at all embarrassing for anyone. Even
the Cabinet girl, with a grandmother in very humble life, who must be
kept in the background, could not feel disconcerted.

For this happy result Mrs. Carrisw