haps, you can get Mrs. Mosher.'

'Your grandmother can't come, when I depended so much upon her, and she
thinks I can get Mrs. Mosher, that termagant, who would raise a mutiny
in the kitchen in an hour!' Mrs. Tracy said this so sharply that a flush
mounted to the handsome face of the boy, who felt as if he were in some
way a culprit and being reprimanded. 'She _must_ come, if she does
nothing but sit in the kitchen and keep order,' was Mrs. Tracy's next
remark.

'She can't,' Harold replied; 'her foot and ankle is all swelled and
aches so she almost cries. She is awful sorry, and so am I, for I was
coming with her to see the show.'

This speech put a new idea into Mrs. Tracy's mind, and she said to the
boy:

'How would you like to come anyway, and stay in the upper hall, and tell
the people where to go? The boy I engaged has disappointed me. You are
rather small for the place, but I guess you'll do, and I will give you
fifty cents.'

'I'd like it first-rate,' Harold said, his face brightening at the
thought of earning fifty cents and seeing the show at the same time.

Half-dollars were not very plentiful with Harold, and he was trying to
save enough to buy his grandmother a pair of spectacles, for he had
heard her say that she could not thread her needle as readily as she
once did, and must have glasses as soon as she had the money to spare.
Harold had seen a pair at the drug-store for one dollar, and, without
knowing at all whether they would fit his grandmother's eyes or not, had
asked the druggist to keep them until he had the required amount. Fifty
cents would just make it, and he promised at once that he would come;
but in an instant there fell a shadow upon his face as he thought of
_Tom_, his tormentor, who worried him so much.

'What is it?' Mrs. Tracy asked, as she detected in him a disposition to
reconsider.

'Will Tom be up in the hall?' Harold asked.

'Of course not,' Mrs. Tracy replied. 'He will be in the parlors until
ten o'clock, and then he will go to bed. Why do you ask?'

'Because,' Harold answered fearlessly, 'if he was to be there I could
not come; he chaffs me so and twits me with being poor and living in a
house his uncle gave us.'

'That is very naughty in him, and I will see that he behaves better in
future,' said Mrs. Tracy, rather amused than other wise at the boy's
frankness.

As the mention of the uncle reminded Harold of the telegram, he took it
from his pocket and handed it t