get out of such a place
in such hot weather. Still, it was the sort of a home Ford Foster had
been best acquainted with all his life, and it was partly owing to
that that he had become so prematurely "knowing."

He knew too much, in fact, and was only too well aware of it. He had
filled his head with an unlimited stock of boarding-house information,
as well as with a firm persuasion that there was little more to be
had,--unless, indeed, it might be scraps of such outside, knowledge as
he had now been picking up over on Long Island.

In one of the great "parlor chambers" of the boarding-house, at about
eight o'clock that evening, a middle-aged gentleman and lady, with a
fair, sweet-faced girl of about nineteen, were sitting near an open
window, very much as if they were waiting for somebody.

Such a kindly, motherly lady! She was one of those whom no one can
help liking, after seeing her smile once, or hearing her speak.
Whatever may have been his faults or short-comings, Ford Foster could
not have put in words what he thought about his mother. And yet he
had no difficulty in expressing his respect for his father, or his
unbounded admiration for his pretty sister Annie.

"Oh, husband!" exclaimed Mrs. Foster, "are you sure none of them were
injured?"

"So the telegraphic report said. Not a bone broken of anybody but the
pig that got in the way."

"But how I wish he would come!" groaned Annie. "Have you any idea,
papa, how he can get home?"

"Not clearly," said her father, "but you can trust Ford not to miss
any opportunity. He's just the boy to look out for himself in an
emergency."

Ford Foster's father took very strongly after the son in whose ability
he expressed so much confidence. He had just such a square, active,
bustling sort of body, several sizes larger, with just such keen,
penetrating, greenish-gray eyes. Anybody would have picked him out, at
a glance, for a lawyer, and a good one.

That was exactly what he was, and if any one had become acquainted
with either son or father, there would have been no difficulty
afterward in identifying the other.

It required a good deal more than the telegraphic report of the
accident or even her husband's assurances, to relieve the motherly
anxiety of good Mrs. Foster, or even to drive away the shadows from
the face of Annie.

No doubt if Ford himself had known the state of affairs, they would
have been relieved earlier; for even while they were talking about