d a young girl of about sixteen to alight.

"Jehosophat--Moses and Aaron's rod, my boy! do you see her?" gasped
Sukey.

"Yes."

"Ain't she pretty?"

"Hush! she may hear you."

"Well, if she'd get mad at that, she is different from most girls."

"Her father might not think it much of a compliment."

The coachman, closing the door of the carriage mounted his box and took
the reins, while the pretty girl took her father's arm and came down the
street passing the young men, who, we fear, stared at her rudely. They
were hardly to be blamed for it, for she was as near perfection as a
girl of sixteen can be. Tall, willowy form, with deep blue eyes, soft as
a gazelle's, long, silken lashes and arched eyebrows, with golden hair,
and so graceful that every movement might be set to music.

Fernando gazed after her until she disappeared into a fashionable shop,
and then, uttering a sigh, started as if from a dream.

"What do you say now, old fellow?" asked Sukey.

"Let us go home."

"Home?"

"Well, back to the widow Mahone's inn."

"All right; now let us try to find the trail."

It was no easy matter, although they had the street and number well
fixed in their mind. Finally they asked a watchman (policemen were
called watchmen in those days) and he conducted them to the abode of
Mrs. Mahone.

The first person to greet them was Terrence. There was a bright smile on
his jolly face as he cried:

"It's right plazed I am to see ye lookin' so cheerful, boys; and it's a
good time ye be having roaming the streets and looking at the beauty of
Baltimore. Much of it you'll find, to be sure. To-morrow we'll go to the
academy, pay our entrance fee and begin business."

[ILLUSTRATION: AS NEAR PERFECTION AS A GIRL OF SIXTEEN CAN BE.]

"Terrence," said Fernando in a half whisper, "Can't we find a more
comfortable place than this to live in?"

"Oh, be aisy, me frind, for it's an illegant a house I've got for all
of us, and we'll be as comfortable there as a banshee."

Not knowing what a "banshee" was, Fernando, of course, could draw no
conclusion from the comparison. When the three young men had entered
their room, Terrence began to tell them of a beautiful "craythur" he had
that day seen in town, and on inquiry learned she lived a few miles away
on the coast. She was the daughter of an old sea captain and came almost
daily to the city.

"What is her name?" asked Fernando.

"Lane."

"Great Jehosiphat, Fernando! Lane w