“Then let’s go back. I am beat;” and back home they went and made it up. In contrast to this comedy of the highway stands in my memory a human tragedy that made a deep impression upon our childish minds, though we little understood at the time. There was in our street a public house keeper with whose pretty daughter we played at our daily games until she grew out of short skirts into a very handsome but flashy young woman. After a while she disappeared, and rumors reached the town that she was living in Hamburg upon the wages of sin, whereat the little circle in which she had spun her top buzzed mightily, and scandalized mammas turned up their noses with an “I told you so.” Her mother went about red-eyed as if from much crying, but was rarely seen outside her house. As for the father, publican that he was, he said nothing, but grimly held his peace. Then one day a stylish carriage, the most elegant the town owned, drove up to the door of the public house, and a lady in silks and furbelows, and with a mammoth ostrich-feather sweeping her shoulder, descended and went in. Like a storm wind the report spread through the street that Helene had come home a fine lady, and we boys gathered to see the carriage and the show. We were standing there when the door of the house was opened, and the publican and his daughter came out. She was weeping pitifully, and the feather drooped sadly as he gave her his arm and, with face sternly set but with the dignity of righteous fatherhood, led her to the carriage, helped her in, and, closing the door, bade the coachman drive on. At the window we caught a moment’s glimpse of the mother’s tearful face as the coach turned the corner; then the door closed, and we saw and heard no more. We knew, somehow, that a drama of human sin and sorrow had been enacted in our sight, but little else. Years after, I heard what had happened within. She had come in her paint and her fripperies, unrepenting, to her old home; but barely within its shelter had been met by her father with the hard demand whether she was living honestly. “First answer me,” he said, barring the way to her mother; “are you honest?” And when she was silent and hung her head, he led her forth, an outcast without her mother’s kiss. The Old Town never saw her again.