"The last inning! The last inning!" cried Miss Alice, gleefully clapping her hands, "and the Catalpas are first at the bat with a lead of one to their credit! Oh, I do hope that Albert will make a run! I know he will! Look at him where he stands! Isn't he handsome, Aunt Anstress?" Miss Anstress Howell turned her cool glance in the direction of the Diamond Field, and looking at Albert, said that she was not sure whether a young man could be called good-looking in those singularly ill-fitting and peculiar clothes that ball-players wore; but she was interested in the game, as a whole, she said, without any special interest in the players as individuals. She took in the performance without any thought for the men who carried it forward. "You are a kind of overseeing providence, Anstress?" said the Judge. While they were talking, a murmur, only a murmur, of conversation swept around the crowded enclosure, and everybody seemed to be saying to his neighbor that this was the conclusive and crucial moment in the struggle. All eyes were intent on Al Heaton, and even grown men held their breath, as, with close tension of every nerve, they watched the movements of the players in the field. Tom Selby, attended by his faithful satellite, Mike Costigan, who had a holiday, gazed with admiring eyes at his demi-god, Albert Heaton, and so still was the air, now soft and warm and dimmed by the lustrous October haze, that one might have heard a leaf drop, as Bill Van Orman eloquently expressed it, afterwards. Albert patiently waited for a good ball, and when he saw one come, at last, he sent the sphere out of the reach of Glenn Otto and placed a base hit to his credit. Next came "The Lily" who hit the very first ball pitched, for two bases, and, with a volley of ah-h-h-s following him, sent in Al Heaton to the home plate. Larry came next in order, and pretty Alice Howell felt a quickening of her pulse and her color glowing as she saw the resolute and sturdy figure of the favorite of the club shouldering his bat and striding to position. Larry made a safe hit to the right field, sending in "The Lily," and securing his own base. Sam Morrison was put out at first while Larry shot to second base. Then Neddie Ellis went out on a fly to Rob Peabody, and Charlie King ended the inning for the Catalpas, by striking out, leaving Larry on third base, to which he had stolen meanwhile. The Catalpas now had a lead of three, and the Calumets came to the bat with lugubrious faces. "But I have seen sicker children than this get well," was Captain Ayres's philosophical remark, as Glenn Otto went to the bat for the visiting club.