erwards.

There had taken the place of Augustus Burlingame a land-agent--Jesse
Bulrush--who came and went like a catapult, now in domicile for three
days together, now gone for three weeks; a voluble, gaseous, humorous
fellow, who covered up a well of commercial evasiveness, honesty and
adroitness by a perspiring gaiety natural in its origin and convenient
for harmless deceit. He was fifty, and no gallant save in words; and,
as a wary bachelor of many years' standing, it was a long time before
he showed a tendency to blandish a good-looking middle-aged nurse named
Egan who also lodged with Mrs. Tynan; though even a plain-faced nurse
in uniform has an advantage over a handsome unprofessional woman. Jesse
Bulrush and J. G. Kerry were friends--became indeed such confidential
friends to all appearance, though their social origin was evidently
so different, that Kitty Tynan, when she wished to have a pleasant
conversation which gave her a glow for hours afterwards, talked to the
fat man of his lean and aristocratic-looking friend.

"Got his head where it ought to be--on his shoulders; and it ain't
for playing football with," was the frequent remark of Mr. Bulrush
concerning Mr. Kerry. This always made Kitty Tynan want to sing, she
could not have told why, save that it seemed to her the equivalent of a
long history of the man whose past lay in mists that never lifted, and
whom even the inquisitive Burlingame had been unable to "discover" when
he lived in the same house. But then Kitty Tynan was as fond of singing
as a canary, and relieved her feelings constantly by this virtuous and
becoming means, with her good contralto voice. She was indeed a creature
of contradictions; for if ever any one should have had a soprano voice
it was she. She looked a soprano.

What she was thinking of as she sang with Kerry's coat in her hand
it would be hard to discover by the process of elimination, as the
detectives say when tracking down a criminal. It is, however, of no
consequence; but it was clear that the song she sang had moved her,
for there was the glint of a tear in her eye as she turned towards the
house, the words of the lyric singing themselves over in her brain:

"Hereaway my heart was soft; when he kissed my happy eyes,
Held my hand, and pressed his cheek warm against my brow,
Home I saw upon the hearth, heaven stood there in the skies'
Whereaway, whereaway goes my lover now?"'

She knew that no lover h