and he droned down into the old speculations as to her
"holding out another winter."

"Did you ever meet her?" I asked, with perhaps idle curiosity.

"Only once,--last winter. I was creeping out one cold evening to
the----well, my boarding-house, and I met her face to face, in her pony
chaise, near her own gate. She's withered into something like wrinkled
leather now, with heavy opal ear-drops at each side of her skinny face.
She makes the black fellow pull up. 'So! you're prowling round still,
Steadman, hyena-like? Stand, and let me look at you.' With that her eyes
went all over, gloating like a beast of prey, I thought, but I said
nothing. Then she laughed. 'I'll walk over your grave yet!' she said.
'Drive on, Joe.' Nobody goes near her now but her blacks; her sharp
tongue keeps them off."

"And Matt?" I asked.

"Matt's in St. Louis. You'll see him, as you're going there. But you'll
not mention me, Mr. Humphreys? Matt often wanted me to join them. Matt's
kind; but I'll wait for my rights. It's long since he heard from me, and
I'd rather you would not mention me."

I gave the promise, and he rose to go. My face burned as I offered him
money, not knowing what the effect would be on him; but he took it
eagerly,--not for the first time, I saw.

"Are you comfortably quartered, Steadman?" I asked, when we reached the
door.

His lank jaws did redden at this.

"Yes, very comfortably, very; I have a----friends."

Graves, the landlord, laughed as he hurried down the street, and told me
that the poor wretch had been for two years in the county almshouse, at
times helpless from imbecility.

"He has days of sense," said Graves. "To-night was the best I've knowed.
Seeing you revived him like."

In St. Louis I found Matt Steadman head of a machine-foundry. His house,
a pretty, tasteful home, was back in the French quarter. I found Jane
there, pink-cheeked, bustling, cheery as ever,--and old Mrs. Steadman, a
placid old lady, in the corner, watching jealously over her
grandchildren.

"I told you no lady in the land would look like mother, when her turn
came to wear silks and laces," said Matt. "None does--to me,"--patting
her cheek tenderly.

Matt was the firm, tight-built, alert fellow of old, looking out of the
same shrewd, kindly eyes; but he talked pure English now, and put broad,
liberal views and true creeds into his vigorous Saxon, and, better
still, into his life. It was a good, wholesome home, even to look in