Miss Pray put on her glasses and studied wearily and long on her letters, placing them every way. I saw that she had them now at last, "w-h-a-l-e," but was regarding them as blankly as ever. "Pray do not move them again," I cried hopefully, finding the game more exciting than I had anticipated. "You have it, 'w-h-a-l-e,' whale--see?" Miss Pray looked shocked and dubious. I saw at once that she was suffering under the sorrowful mental conviction that I had spelled the word wrongly: but that she was resolved not again to wound my feelings. She turned to assist Vesty. "That," she said at length, struck by some suggestive combination, "might be 'continnu,' Vesty, ef it had more 'n's and no 'e'." "Oh," said Vesty, pleased and enlightened. "But major knows," she added promptly, "about the spelling." "I have your word, you see, Vesty," I said. "'S-e-p-p-e-r-a-t-i-o-n.'" I had it spread out proudly on the table. She looked at me and blushed again. I smiled, only as I would at a priceless child. "You _are_ cute at _guessin'_, major," said Miss Pray admiringly; but I saw that she held me deficient in the classical prearrangement of words, and that the game had lost interest to her on that account. So we laid it by. When Vesty rose to go home, "I will go with you," I said, wrapping my sad little presence in an overcoat. Miss Pray looked as she had when she asked me if I was rebellious. But Vesty said quickly: "I wish you would. I am so afraid in the dark!" Afraid in the dark! Not she; but this was some ointment for that unconscious thrust Miss Pray had given. I walked home with her. Coming back, there was ever a slight crackling in the bushes and stealthy breathing behind me. It was the lad, Jimmy Kirtland, sent by Vesty surreptitiously to see that I arrived safely at Miss Pray's. I regarded sacredly this innocent device, but, arrived in the house, I heard Jimmy outside pleading cautiously to Miss Pray through the window that he was afraid to go back alone. Miss Pray tried to arouse one of her two orphans--her help: for answer they screamed aloud, sinking back into a sleep deep with snores of utter repose. "Sh! sh!" she said. "I'll go home with you, Jimmy." I had not taken off my great-coat. I went out of my room and followed them, unseen. In sight of the Kirtland home-light Jimmy ran in, glad. Miss Pray turned to face the darkness alone; she went a few paces, stopped, hesitated, and began to weep softly. "I am here to walk home with you, Miss Pray," I said. "Come; I can see very well in the dark." "Thank God!" said she, and came toward me with a little bound; for it seemed that it did not make any difference to her in this emergency that I did not know how to spell. VII "SETTIN' ON THE FENCE"--THE SHIFTY SPECTRE "Admiral 's I sum-sit-up," collector of road-taxes, a title cheerfully accorded him through the genial courtesy of the Basin, came down from the Point.