that “she dressed so neat and looked so sweet” was glaringly allusive to her own modish mourning. Alternately flushing and paling, with a hysteric smile hovering round her small reserved mouth, the unfortunate gentlewoman was fain to turn to the window to keep her countenance until it was concluded. She did not ask him to repeat it, nor did she again subject herself to this palpable serenade, but a few days afterwards, as she was idly striking the keys in the interval of a music lesson, one of her little pupils broke out, “Why, Mrs. Martin, if yo ain't a pickin' out that pow'ful pretty tune that Mr. Twing sings!” Nevertheless, when Twing, a week or two later, suggested that he might sing the same song as a solo at a certain performance to be given by the school children in aid of a local charity, she drily intimated that it was hardly of a character to suit the entertainment. “But,” she added, more gently, “you recite so well; why not give a recitation?” He looked at her with questioning and troubled eyes,--the one expression he seemed to have lately acquired. “But that would be IN PUBLIC! There'll be a lot of people there,” he said doubtfully. A little amused at this first apparent sign of a want of confidence in himself, she said, with a reassuring smile, “So much the better,--you do it really too well to have it thrown away entirely on children.” “Do YOU wish it?” he said suddenly. Somewhat confused, but more irritated by his abruptness, she replied, “Why not?” But when the day came, and before a crowded audience, in which there was a fair sprinkling of strangers, she regretted her rash suggestion. For when the pupils had gone through certain calisthenic exercises--admirably taught and arranged by him--and “spoken their pieces,” he arose, and, fixing his eyes on her, began Othello's defense before the Duke and Council. Here, as on the previous occasion, she felt herself personally alluded to in his account of his wooing. Desdemona, for some occult reason, vicariously appeared for her in the unwarrantable picture of his passion, and to this was added the absurd consciousness which she could not put aside that the audience, following with enthusiasm his really strong declamation, was also following his suggestion and adopting it. Yet she was also conscious, and, as she thought, as inconsistently, of being pleased and even proud of his success. At the conclusion the applause was general, and a voice added with husky admiration and familiarity:-- “Brayvo, Johnny Walker!” Twing's face became suddenly white as a Pierrot mask. There was a dead silence, in which the voice continued, “Give us 'Sugar in the Gourd,' Johnny.” A few hisses, and cries of “Hush!” “Put him out!” followed. Mrs. Martin raised her eyes quickly to where her assistant had stood bowing his thanks a moment before. He was gone!