rsting into a loud laugh at her comical appearance, he released her,
and she made the quickest possible retreat into the house by the way she
came out.

Bushing breathless upstairs, she exclaimed, "Oh, mother, mother, I've done
it now! They've come, and I've beat him over the head with a broom!"

"Beat whom over the head with a broom?" asked Mrs. Ellis.

"Oh, mother, I'm so ashamed, I don't know what to do with myself. I struck
Mr. Winston with a broom. Mr. Winston, the gentleman father has brought
home."

"I really believe the child is crazy," said Mrs. Ellis, surveying the
chagrined girl. "Beat Mr. Winston over the head with a broom! how came you
to do it?"

"Oh, mother, I made a great mistake; I thought he was a beggar."

"He must be a very different looking person from what we have been led to
expect," here interrupted Esther. "I understood father to say that he was
very gentlemanlike in appearance."

"So he is," replied Caddy.

"But you just said you took him for a beggar?" replied her mother.

"Oh, don't bother me, don't bother me! my head is all turned upside down.
Do, Esther, go down and let them in--hear how furiously father is knocking!
Oh, go--do go!"

Esther quickly descended and opened the door for Winston and her father;
and whilst the former was having the dust removed and his hat straightened,
Mrs. Ellis came down and was introduced by her husband. She laughingly
apologized for the ludicrous mistake Caddy had made, which afforded great
amusement to all parties, and divers were the jokes perpetrated at her
expense during the remainder of the evening. Her equanimity having been
restored by Winston's assurances that he rather enjoyed the joke than
otherwise--and an opportunity having been afforded her to obliterate the
obnoxious marks from the door-steps--she exhibited great activity in
forwarding all the arrangements for tea.

They sat a long while round the table--much time that, under ordinary
circumstances, would have been given to the demolition of the food before
them, being occupied by the elders of the party in inquiries after mutual
friends, and in relating the many incidents that had occurred since they
last met.

Tea being at length finished, and the things cleared away, Mrs. Ellis gave
the girls permission to go out. "Where are you going?" asked their father.

"To the library company's room--to-night is their last lecture."

"I thought," said Winston, "that coloured persons were