edge of the platform
that something might be whispered in his ear. The news, whatever it was,
was apparently electrifying, and after the first shock he turned to
impart it to Mr. Graves; but turned too late, for the judge had already
rapped for order and was clearing his throat. He could not account for
this extraordinary and unlooked-for audience, among whom he spied many
who had thought it wiser not to protest against the dictum of the first
citizen, and many who had professed to believe that the teacher's
connection with Jethro Bass was a good and sufficient reason for
dismissal. The judge was prepared to take advantage of the tide, whatever
its cause.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "I take the liberty of calling this
meeting to order. And before a chairman be elected, I mean to ask your
indulgence to explain my purposes in requesting the use of this hall
to-night. In our system of government, the inalienable and most precious
gift--"

Whatever the gift was, the judge never explained. He paused at the words,
and repeated them, and stopped altogether because no one was paying any
attention to him. The hall was almost full, the people had risen, with a
hum, and as one man had turned toward the door. Mr. Gamaliel Ives was
triumphantly marching down the aisle, and with him was--well, another
person. Nay, personage would perhaps be the better word.

Let us go back for a moment. There descended from that train of which we
have heard the whistle a lady with features of no ordinary moulding, with
curls and a string bonnet and a cloak that seemed strangely to harmonize
with the lady's character. She had the way of one in authority, and Mr.
Sherman himself ran to open the door of his only closed carriage, and the
driver galloped off with her all the way to the Brampton House. Once
there, the lady seized the pen as a soldier seizes the sword, and wrote
her name in most uncompromising characters on the register, Miss Lucretia
Penniman, Boston. Then she marched up to her room.

Miss Lucretia Penniman, author of the "Hymn to Coniston," in the
reflected glory of whose fame Brampton had shone for thirty years! Whose
name was lauded and whose poem was recited at every Fourth of July
celebration, that the very children might learn it and honor its
composer! Stratford-on-Avon is not prouder of Shakespeare than Brampton
of Miss Lucretia, and now she was come back, unheralded, to her
birthplace. Mr. Raines, the clerk, looked at t