ed--the
favorable impression was achieved. Later it was confirmed and solidified
when Wilson proposed that out of courtesy to the strangers the usual
topics be put aside and the hour be devoted to conversation upon ordinary
subjects and the cultivation of friendly relations and good-fellowship--a
proposition which was put to vote and carried.
The hour passed quickly away in lively talk, and when it was ended, the
lonesome and neglected Wilson was richer by two friends than he had been
when it began. He invited the twins to look in at his lodgings
presently, after disposing of an intervening engagement, and they
accepted with pleasure.
Toward the middle of the evening, they found themselves on the road to
his house. Pudd'nhead was at home waiting for them and putting in his
time puzzling over a thing which had come under his notice that morning.
The matter was this: He happened to be up very early--at dawn, in fact;
and he crossed the hall, which divided his cottage through the center,
and entered a room to get something there. The window of the room had no
curtains, for that side of the house had long been unoccupied, and
through this window he caught sight of something which surprised and
interested him. It was a young woman--a young woman where properly no
young woman belonged; for she was in Judge Driscoll's house, and in the
bedroom over the judge's private study or sitting room. This was young
Tom Driscoll's bedroom. He and the judge, the judge's widowed sister Mrs.
Pratt, and three Negro servants were the only people who belonged in the
house. Who, then, might this young lady be? The two houses were
separated by an ordinary yard, with a low fence running back through its
middle from the street in front to the lane in the rear. The distance
was not great, and Wilson was able to see the girl very well, the window
shades of the room she was in being up, and the window also. The girl had
on a neat and trim summer dress, patterned in broad stripes of pink and
white, and her bonnet was equipped with a pink veil. She was practicing
steps, gaits and attitudes, apparently; she was doing the thing
gracefully, and was very much absorbed in her work. Who could she be, and
how came she to be in young Tom Driscoll's room?
Wilson had quickly chosen a position from which he could watch the girl
without running much risk of being seen by her, and he remained there
hoping she would raise her veil and betray her face. But she
disappointed him. After a matter of twen