f the bread business.

"I would try not to mind their savageness, Richling," said the little
preacher, slowly. "The best of us are only savages hid under a harness.
If we're not, we've somehow made a loss." Richling looked at him with
amused astonishment, but he persisted. "I'm in earnest! We've had
something refined out of us that we shouldn't have parted with. Now,
there's Mrs. Reisen. I like her. She's a good woman. If the savage can
stand you, why can't you stand the savage?"

"Yes, true enough. Yet--well, I must get out of this, anyway."

The little man clapped him on the shoulder.

"_Climb_ out. See here, you Milwaukee man,"--he pushed Richling
playfully,--"what are _you_ doing with these Southern notions of ours
about the 'yoke of menial service,' anyhow?"

"I was not born in Milwaukee," said Richling.

"And you'll not die with these notions, either," retorted the other.
"Look here, I am going. Good-by. You've got to get rid of them, you
know, before your wife comes. I'm glad you are not going to send for her
now."

"I didn't say I wasn't."

"I wouldn't."

"Oh, you don't know what you'd do," said Richling.

The little preacher eyed him steadily for a moment, and then slowly
returned to where he still sat holding his knee.

They had a long talk in very quiet tones. At the end the rector
asked:--

"Didn't you once meet Dr. Sevier's two nieces--at his house?"

"Yes," said Richling.

"Do you remember the one named Laura?--the dark, flashing one?"

"Yes."

"Well,--oh, pshaw! I could tell you something funny, but I don't care to
do it."

What he did not care to tell was, that she had promised him five years
before to be his wife any day when he should say the word. In all that
time, and this very night, one letter, one line almost, and he could
have ended his waiting; but he was not seeking his own happiness.

They smiled together. "Well, good-by again. Don't think I'm always going
to persecute you with my solicitude."

"I'm not worth it," said Richling, slipping slowly down from his high
stool and letting the little man out into the street.

A little way down the street some one coming out of a dark alley just in
time to confront the clergyman extended a hand in salutation.

"Good-evenin', Mr. Blank."

He took the hand. It belonged to a girl of eighteen, bareheaded and
barefooted, holding in the other hand a small oil-can. Her eyes looked
steadily into his.

"You don't know me," she said