f the lean-to bedroom which Mr. Abel Pinkham had occupied as a
bachelor; it was not the only witness of his being taken in by city
sharpers, and he had winced ever since at the thought of their wiles.
But he was now a man of sixty, well-to-do, and of authority in town
affairs; his children were all well married and settled in homes of
their own, except a widowed daughter, who lived at home with her young
son, and was her mother's lieutenant in household affairs.

The boy was almost grown, and at this season, when the maple sugar was
all made and shipped, and it was still too early for spring work on
the land, Mr. Pinkham could leave home as well as not, and here he was
in New York, feeling himself to be a stranger and foreigner to city
ways. If it had not been for that desire to appear well in his wife's
eyes, which had buoyed him over the bar of many difficulties, he could
have found it in his heart to take the next train back to Wetherford,
Vermont, to be there rid of his best clothes and the stiff rim of his
heavy felt hat. He could not let his wife discover that the noise and
confusion of Broadway had the least power to make him flinch: he cared
no more for it than for the woods in snow-time. He was as good as
anybody, and she was better. They owed nobody a cent; and they had
come on purpose to see the city of New York.

They were sitting at the breakfast-table in the Ethan Allen Hotel,
having arrived at nightfall the day before. Mrs. Pinkham looked a
little pale about the mouth. She had been kept awake nearly all night
by the noise, and had enjoyed but little the evening she had spent in
the stuffy parlor of the hotel, looking down out of the window at what
seemed to her but garish scenes, and keeping a reproachful and
suspicious eye upon some unpleasantly noisy young women of forward
behavior who were her only companions. Abel himself was by no means so
poorly entertained in the hotel office and smoking-room. He felt much
more at home than she did, being better used to meeting strange men
than she was to strange women, and he found two or three companions
who had seen more than he of New York life. It was there, indeed, that
the young reporter found him, hearty and country-fed, and loved the
appearance of his best clothes, and the way Mr. Abel Pinkham brushed
his hair, and loved the way that he spoke in a loud and manful voice
the belief and experience of his honest heart.

In the morning at breakfast-time the P