trimmed--but I know enough now to keep away
from this burg!"

While he was yet speaking there came a loud ring at the front door of
the little bungalow, followed immediately by the entrance of the
manager of a down-town vaudeville house. He plunged at once into his
errand. He would offer Carmen one hundred dollars a week, and a
contract for six months, to appear twice daily in his theater. "She'll
make a roar!" he asserted. "Heavens, Madam! but she did put it over
the society ginks." And the Beaubien, shivering at the awful
proposal, was glad Harris was there to lead the zealous theatrical man
firmly to the door.

Lastly, came one Amos A. Hitt, gratuitously, to introduce himself as
one who knew Cartagena and was likely to return there in the not
distant future, where he would be glad to do what he might to remove
the stain which had been laid upon the name of the fair girl. The
genuineness of the man stood out so prominently that the Beaubien took
him at once into her house, where he was made acquainted with Carmen.

"Oh," cried the girl, "Cartagena! Why, I wonder--do you know Padre
Jose de Rincon?"

"A priest who once taught there in the University, many years ago? And
who was sent up the river, to Simiti? Yes, well."

Then Carmen fell upon his neck; and there in that moment was begun a
friendship that grew daily stronger, and in time bore richest fruit.
It soon became known that Hitt was giving a course of lectures that
fall in the University, covering the results of his archaeological
explorations; so Carmen and Father Waite went often to hear him. And
the long breaths of University atmosphere which the girl inhaled
stimulated a desire for more. Besides, Father Waite had some time
before announced his determination to study there that winter, as long
as his meager funds would permit.

"I shall take up law," he had one day said. "It will open to me the
door of the political arena, where there is such great need of real
men, men who stand for human progress, patriotism, and morality. I
shall seek office--not for itself, but for the good I can do, and the
help I can be in a practical way to my fellow-men. I have a little
money. I can work my way through."

Carmen shared the inspiration; and so she, too, with the Beaubien's
permission, applied for admittance to the great halls of learning, and
was accepted.

* * * * *

"And now," began Father Waite that evening, when