t
say; for at this moment Ah Fe discovered the secret of the lock, and was
enabled to open the door coincident with the sound of footsteps upon
the kitchen-stairs. Ah Fe did not hasten his movements, but, patiently
shouldering his basket, closed the door carefully behind him again, and
stepped forth into the thick encompassing fog that now shrouded earth
and sky.

From her high casement-window, Mrs. Tretherick watched Ah Fe's figure
until it disappeared in the gray cloud. In her present loneliness, she
felt a keen sense of gratitude toward him, and may have ascribed to
the higher emotions and the consciousness of a good deed, that certain
expansiveness of the chest, and swelling of the bosom, that was really
due to the hidden presence of the scarf and tablecloth under his blouse.
For Mrs. Tretherick was still poetically sensitive. As the gray fog
deepened into night, she drew Carry closer towards her, and, above
the prattle of the child, pursued a vein of sentimental and egotistic
recollection at once bitter and dangerous. The sudden apparition of Ah
Fe linked her again with her past life at Fiddletown. Over the dreary
interval between, she was now wandering,--a journey so piteous, wilful,
thorny, and useless, that it was no wonder that at last Carry stopped
suddenly in the midst of her voluble confidences to throw her small arms
around the woman's neck, and bid her not to cry.

Heaven forefend that I should use a pen that should be ever dedicated
to an exposition of unalterable moral principle to transcribe Mrs.
Tretherick's own theory of this interval and episode, with its feeble
palliations, its illogical deductions, its fond excuses, and weak
apologies. It would seem, however, that her experience had been hard.
Her slender stock of money was soon exhausted. At Sacramento she
found that the composition of verse, although appealing to the highest
emotions of the human heart, and compelling the editorial breast to the
noblest commendation in the editorial pages, was singularly inadequate
to defray the expenses of herself and Carry. Then she tried the stage,
but failed signally. Possibly her conception of the passions was
different from that which obtained with a Sacramento audience; but it
was certain that her charming presence, so effective at short range, was
not sufficiently pronounced for the footlights. She had admirers enough
in the green-room, but awakened no abiding affection among the audience.
In this strai