“’Squire, I’m ashamed of you!” cried Miss Clark; “Archie, _you_ know better!” Amos paid no visible attention to the change of name; but she must have noticed her own slip, for she said: “I never told you the Colonel’s whole name, did I? It’s Colonel Archibald Cary. I’d like you never to mention it, though. And ’Squire Clark is named after an uncle of mine who raised me, for my parents died when I was a little girl. Clark Byng was his name, and I called the cat by the first part of it.” Amos did not know whether interest would be considered impertinent, so he contented himself with remarking that they were “both pretty names.” “Uncle was a good man,” said Miss Clark. “He was only five feet four in height, but very fond of muscular games, and a great admirer of tall men. Colonel Cary was six feet two. I reckon that’s about your height?” “Exactly, ma’am,” said Amos. She sighed slightly; then turned the conversation to Amos’s own affairs. An instinct of delicacy kept him from ever questioning her, and she vouchsafed him no information. Once she asked him to come and see her when he wanted anything that she could give him. “I’m at home to you every day, except the third of the month,” said she. On reflection Amos remembered that it was on the third that he had paid his first visit to Miss Clark. “Well, ma,” he remarked, walking up and down in front of his mother’s portrait in his office, as his habit was, “it is a queer case, ain’t it? But I’m not employed to run the poor old lady to cover, and I sha’n’t let any one else if I can help it.” Had Amos been vain, he would have remarked the change in his singular friend since their friendship had begun. Old Margaret wore the decent black gown and bonnet becoming an elderly gentlewoman. She carried a silk umbrella. The neighbors began to address her as “Miss Clark.” Amos, however, was not vain, and all he told his mother’s picture was that the old lady was quality, and no mistake.