acts began to shoot through
his brain, and he saw his chance.

"He called a mass meeting to protest against the dismissal of a
teacher."

"Gamaliel," said Miss Lucretia, "you will conduct me to that meeting. I
will get my cloak."

Mr. Ives wasted no time in the interval, and he fairly ran out into the
office. Miss Lucretia Penniman was in town, and would attend the
mass meeting. Now, indeed, it was to be a mass meeting. Away flew the
tidings, broadcast, and people threw off their carpet slippers and
dressing gowns, and some who had gone to bed got up again. Mr. Dodd
heard it, and changed his shoes three times, and his intentions three
times three. Should he go, or should he not? Already he heard in
imagination the first distant note of the populace, and he was not of
the metal to defend a Bastille or a Louvre for his royal master with the
last drop of his blood.

In the meantime Gamaliel Ives was conducting Miss Lucretia toward
the town hall, and speaking in no measured tones of indignation of the
cringing, truckling qualities of that very Mr. Dodd. The injustice to
Miss Wetherell, which Mr. Ives explained as well as he could, made his
blood boil: so he declared.

And note we are back again at the meeting, when the judge, with his
hand on his Adam's apple, is pronouncing the word "gift." Mr. Ives
is triumphantly marching down the aisle, escorting the celebrity of
Brampton to the platform, and quite aware of the heart burnings of
his fellow-citizens on the benches. And Miss Lucretia, with that stern
composure with which celebrities accept public situations, follows up
the steps as of right and takes the chair he assigns her beside the
chairman. The judge, still grasping his Adam's apple, stares at the
newcomer in amazement, and recognizes her in spite of the years, and
trembles. Miss Lucretia Penniman! Blucher was not more welcome to
Wellington, or Lafayette to Washington, than was Miss Lucretia to
Ezra Graves as he turned his back on the audience and bowed to her
deferentially. Then he turned again, cleared his throat once more to
collect his senses, and was about to utter the familiar words, "We have
with us tonight," when they were taken out of his mouth--taken out of
his mouth by one who had in all conscience stolen enough thunder for one
man,--Mr. Gamaliel Ives.

"Mr. Chairman," said Mr. Ives, taking a slight dropping of the judge's
lower jaw for recognition, "and ladies and gentlemen of Brampton. It is
our