scrimmage and school-boy sports, the battle royal for the little Auvergnat when taunted with the epithet "Johnny Frog" by the belligerent youth, American born, and the victorious outcome for the "foreigner"; the Auvergne blood was up, and the temperament volcanic like his native soil where subterranean heats evidence themselves in hot, out-welling waters. And afterwards, at home, there were congratulations and comfortings, plus applications of vinegar and brown butcher's paper to the severely smitten nose of this champion of his new Americanhood. But at school and in the street, henceforth there was due respect and a general atmosphere of "let bygones be bygones."

Ah, but the pride of his mother in her boy's progress! the joy over the first English-French letter that went to the great-uncle baker; the constant toil of both parents that the savings might be sufficient to educate their one child—that the son might have what the parents lacked. Already the mother had begun to speak of the priesthood: she might yet see her son Jean a priest, a bishop, and archbishop. Who could tell? America is America, and opportunities infinite—a cardinal, perhaps, and the gift of a red hat from the Pope, and robes and laces! There was no end to her ambitious dreaming.

But across the day-dreams fell the shadow of hard times: the shutting down of the mills, the father's desperate illness in a workless winter, his death in the early spring, followed shortly by that of the worn-out and ill-nourished mother—and for the twelve-year-old boy the abomination of desolation, and world and life seen dimly through tears. Dim, too, from the like cause, that strange passage across the ocean to Dieppe—his mother's uncle having sent for him to return—a weight as of lead in his stomach, a fiery throbbing in his young heart, a sickening craving for some expression of human love. The boyish tendrils, although touched in truth by spring frosts, were outreaching still for some object upon which to fasten; yet he shrank from human touch and sympathy on that voyage in the steerage lest in his grief and loneliness he scream aloud.

Dieppe again, and the Little Trout with her grandfather awaiting him on the pier; the Little Trout's arms about his neck in loving welcome, the boy's heart full to bursting and his eyelids reddened in his supreme effort to keep back tears. Dependent, an orphan, and destined for the priesthood—those were his life lines for the next ten years. And the end? Revolt, rebellion, partial crime, acquittal under the law, but condemnation before the tribunal of his conscience and his God.

There followed the longing to expiate, to expiate in that America where he was not known but where he belonged, where his parents' dust mingled with the soil; to flee to the Church as to a sanctuary of refuge, to be priest through expiation. And this he had been for years while working among the Canadian rivermen, among the lumbermen of Maine, sharing their lives, their toil, their joys and sorrows, the common inheritance of the Human. For years subsequent to his Canadian mission, and after his naturalization as an American citizen, he worked in town and city, among high and low, rich and poor, recognizing in his catholicity of outlook but one human plane: that which may be tested by the spirit level of human needs. Now, at last, he was priest by conviction, by inner consecration.

He stood erect; drew a long full breath; squared his shoulders and looked around him. He noticed for the first time that a Staten Island ferryboat had moved into the slip near him; that several passengers were lingering to look at him; that a policeman was pacing behind him, his eye alert—and he smiled to himself, for he read their thought. He could not blame them for looking. He had fancied himself alone with the sea and the night and his thoughts; had lost himself to his present surroundings in the memory of those years; he had suffered again the old agony of passion, shame, guilt, while the events of that pregnant, preparatory period in France, etched deep with acid burnings into his inmost consciousness, were passing during that half hour in review before his inner vision. Small wonder he was attracting attention!

He bared his head. A new moon was sinking to the Highlands of the Navesink. The May night was mild, the sea breeze drawing in with gentle vigor. He looked northwards up the Hudson, and southwards to the Liberty beacon, and eastwards to the Sound. "God bless our Land" he murmured; then, covering his head, bowed courteously to the policeman and took his way across the Park to the up-town elevated station.

Yes, at last he dared assert it: he was priest by consecration; soul, heart, mind, body dedicate to the service of God through Humanity. That service led him always in human ways. A few nights ago he saw the poster: "The Little Patti". A child then? Thought bridged the abyss of ocean to the Little Trout. Some rescue work for him here, possibly; hence his presence in the theatre.

III

That the priest's effort to rescue the child from the artificial life of the stage had been in a measure successful, was confirmed by the presence, six months later, of the little girl in the yard of the Orphan Asylum on ——nd Street.

On an exceptionally dreary afternoon in November, had any one cared to look over the high board fence that bounds three sides of the Asylum yard, he might have seen an amazing sight and heard a still more amazing chorus:

Higher and higher the voices of the three hundred orphans shrilled in unison as the owners thereof danced frantically around a small solitary figure in the middle of the ring of girls assembled in the yard on ----nd Street. Her coarse blue denim apron was thrown over her head; her face was bowed into her hands that rested on her knees. It was a picture of woe.

The last few words "you love best" rose to a shriek of exhortation. In the expectant silence that followed, "Sally" rose, pirouetted in a fashion worthy of a ballet dancer, then, with head down, fists clenched, arms tight at her sides, she made a sudden dash to break through the encircling wall of girls. She succeeded in making a breach by knocking the legs of three of the tallest out from under them; but two or more dozen arms, octopus-like, caught and held her. For a few minutes chaos reigned: legs, arms, hands, fingers, aprons, heads, stockings, hair, shoes of three hundred orphans were seemingly inextricably entangled. A bell clanged. The three hundred disentangled themselves with marvellous rapidity and, settling aprons, smoothing hair, pulling up stockings and down petticoats, they formed in a long double line. While waiting for the bell to ring the second warning, they stamped their feet, blew upon their cold fingers, and freely exercised their tongues.

"Yer dassn't try that again!" said the mate in line with the obstreperous "Sally" who had so scorned the invitation of the hundreds of girls to "turn to the one that she loved best".

"I dass ter!" was the defiant reply accompanied by the protrusion of a long thin tongue.

"Yer dassn't either!"

"I dass t'either!"

"Git out!" The first speaker nudged the other's ribs with her sharp elbow.

"Slap yer face for two cents!" shrieked the insulted "Sally", the Little Patti of the Vaudeville, and proceeded to carry out her threat. Whereupon Freckles, as she was known in the Asylum, set up a howl that was heard all along the line and turned upon her antagonist tooth and nail. At that moment the bell