hat he was. He knew his punishment was
just. Therefore there lived perpetually in his breast an impulse toward
a better life which was not suppressed and stifled by the five years he
passed within the walls of the jail. He came forth and began to labor.
He toiled hard. He struggled against averted faces and cold words, and
he began to rise. He secreted nothing, faltered at nothing, and never
stumbled. He succeeded; men took off their hats to him once more; he
became wealthy, honorable, God-fearing. I, gentlemen, am that man, that
criminal." As she quoted this last declaration Miss Eunice erected
herself with burning eyes and touched herself proudly upon the breast. A
flush crept into her cheeks, and her nostrils dilated, and she grew
tall.

She came back to earth again, and found herself surrounded with the
prisoners. She was a little startled.

"Ah, that was good!" ejaculated the old man upon whom she had fixed her
eyes. Miss Eunice felt an inexpressible sense of delight.

Murmurs of approbation came from all of her listeners, especially from
one on her right hand. She looked around at him pleasantly.

But the smile faded from her lips on beholding him. He was extremely
tall and very powerful. He overshadowed her. His face was large, ugly,
and forbidding; his gray hair and beard were cropped close, his eyebrows
met at the bridge of his nose and overhung his large eyes like a screen.
His lips were very wide, and, being turned downward at the corners, they
gave him a dolorous expression. His lower jaw was square and protruding,
and a pair of prodigious white ears projected from beneath his
sugar-loaf cap. He seemed to take his cue from the old man, for he
repeated his sentiment.

"Yes," said he, with a voice which broke alternately into a roar and a
whisper, "that was a good story."

"Y-yes," faltered Miss Eunice, "and it has the merit of being t-rue."

He replied with a nod, and looked absently over her head while he rubbed
the nap upon his chin with his hand. Miss Eunice discovered that his
knee touched the skirt of her dress, and she was about to move in order
to destroy this contact, when she remembered that Miss Crofutt would
probably have cherished the accident as a promoter of a valuable
personal influence, so she allowed it to remain. The lean-faced man was
not to be mentioned in the same breath with this one, therefore she
adopted the superior villain out of hand.

She began to approach him. She asked h