"I've never really gone to jail before," cried Martine gayly, as she bade her mother good-bye, "but I'll try so to behave myself that I'll have nothing but good to report when I come back." For a moment or two, before she entered the gaol, Martine surveyed it from the road below. Her comparison of the little building to Noah's Ark really suited it very well. "I can't say that it's exactly my idea of a prison," she thought, "although those brick walls may be thick enough to balance the wooden ends; and even if a prisoner found it easy to jump from the upper windows to the ground, I dare say that some of the bolts and bars were strong enough to hold dangerous persons." Once inside the little building, Martine almost forgot that it was a prison, as she walked about gazing at all kinds of odd things that have been brought together to connect the present with the past. Old china, old pictures, autographs, furniture, fans, and other articles of personal adornment, spoke eloquently of bygone days; so eloquently that Martine shortly realized that a feeling of sadness was taking possession of her. She began to picture the people to whom these things had belonged, to wonder who they were, how long they had lived, and why their homes had been broken up. "For no one with a home," she said to herself, "would ever part with things of this kind." She looked into the old dungeon, the walls of which were eighteen or twenty inches thick, and turned away hastily when another visitor asked her if she wouldn't like to go farther inside. Then she went to the attendant seated at a table in the front room. "How old is this building?" she asked, rather to make conversation than because she really cared to know. "It was built in 1653," was the polite answer, "and is said to be the oldest public building in the United States; there are probably some churches and houses still standing that are a little older, but no building used for more than two hundred years continuously for public purposes. It was built by the Massachusetts people when they took possession of this part of the country in the time of Cromwell." "Indeed!" Martine was not exactly eager for information, but to hear a little more history would help pass the time. "Of course you know," continued the other, "that York was founded under a grant to Sir Ferdinand Gorges, and it was always strongly Royalist; it's the oldest incorporated city in the United States, and although its mayor and aldermen and other high officials existed chiefly on paper and the place was only a small village even into the eighteenth century, still we are all very proud of our history." At this moment a voice at Martine's elbow cried, "Bless my soul," in tones that were strangely familiar, and turning about she met the surprised gaze of Mr. Gamut whom she had last seen at the exercises around the Harvard statue on Class Day.