bellmen were wont to stay during the day
awaiting their calls. A few of the blue-coated Mercuries were there.
Upon Joe's advent they began to look askance at him and to talk among
themselves. He felt his face burning as he thought of what they must be
saying. Then he saw the head bellman talking to the clerk and looking in
his direction. He saw him shake his head and walk away. He could have
cursed him. The clerk called to him.

"I did n't know," he said,--"I did n't know that you were Berry
Hamilton's boy. Now, I 've got nothing against you myself. I don't hold
you responsible for what your father did, but I don't believe our boys
would work with you. I can't take you on."

Joe turned away to meet the grinning or contemptuous glances of the
bellmen on the seat. It would have been good to be able to hurl
something among them. But he was helpless.

He hastened out of the hotel, feeling that every eye was upon him, every
finger pointing at him, every tongue whispering, "There goes Joe
Hamilton, whose father went to the penitentiary the other day."

What should he do? He could try no more. He was proscribed, and the
letters of his ban were writ large throughout the town, where all who
ran might read. For a while he wandered aimlessly about and then turned
dejectedly homeward. His mother had not yet come.

"Did you get a job?" was Kit's first question.

"No," he answered bitterly, "no one wants me now."

"No one wants you? Why, Joe--they--they don't think hard of us, do
they?"

"I don't know what they think of ma and you, but they think hard of me,
all right."

"Oh, don't you worry; it 'll be all right when it blows over."

"Yes, when it all blows over; but when 'll that be?"

"Oh, after a while, when we can show 'em we 're all right."

Some of the girl's cheery hopefulness had come back to her in the
presence of her brother's dejection, as a woman always forgets her own
sorrow when some one she loves is grieving. But she could not
communicate any of her feeling to Joe, who had been and seen and felt,
and now sat darkly waiting his mother's return. Some presentiment seemed
to tell him that, armed as she was with money to pay for what she wanted
and asking for nothing without price, she would yet have no better tale
to tell than he.

None of these forebodings visited the mind of Kit, and as soon as her
mother appeared on the threshold she ran to her, crying, "Oh, where are
we going to live, ma?"

Fannie loo