As soon as they were in the light, I knew them; they were some of my people—a German family, by the name of Abraham, who lived on a little farm just outside our suburb. They had been to me typical representatives of a stupid class, who have all the hardships of life, and none of its soft lights and shades. They were the kind that plant their pig-sty on the lake side of their house—put the pig-sty betwixt them and every other beauty, it seemed to me. What can life hold for such people? They know nothing of love, or any other joy. Merely an animal existence is theirs. We fetched a doctor as speedily as possible—the parents were merely bruised, but the little child was badly hurt. At first we feared she was dying, and it was a relief to be told that she would probably live. I went out of the room to get some bandages, and the doctor followed me. Returning suddenly, I ran upon an unexpected scene; up to that time, before us all, the parents had seemed perfectly stolid; but just as I opened the door, the wife and mother rose from her knees by the bed, and I have seldom seen a look more expressive of tender love than that with which her husband took her in his arms. We have many things to learn in the next world; one of these, I am sure, will be, not to judge by the life upon the surface. There is a deep fount of feeling beneath, and often it is those whom we least suspect, who dip down into it. I was still busy with these people, when Randolph Chance walked in upon me. His kind heart needed no prompting to join in our little attentions, and he was of especial use in getting a vehicle to take the family home. After they had gone, and we found ourselves alone, a great embarrassment seemed to seize him in a fatal grasp. By and by I realized that I was really getting incensed, and I was afraid I should soon be in the position of the man who went to another, whom he had ill-treated, to apologize for his bad conduct, and, “By Jove, sir”—to use his own phrase, “I hit him again.” I tried to keep my letter before my eyes. I didn’t want to be forced by that inexorable tyrant—conscience—to write another. And I should, if I didn’t hold on to myself, and this man didn’t behave differently. To avoid a clash, I set to work to clear away some of the confusion consequent upon the accident, and he helped me in this. One would suppose that might serve to cool him, and it did indeed, to such an extent that, upon our settling down again, he began the most commonplace conversation, giving me some incidents of his trip; discussing the scenery; weather; population, and general aspects of Buffalo; with much more of the dryest, most disagreeable stuff, that a man ever had the temerity to use, as a means of wasting a woman’s evening.