that Mrs. Tretherick had a way of sustaining a note at the end of a line in order that her voice might linger longer with the congregation—­an act that could be attributed only to a defective moral nature; that as a man (he was a very popular dry goods clerk on weekdays, and sang a good deal from apparently behind his eyebrows on the Sabbath)—­that as a man, sir, he would put up with it no longer.  The basso alone—­a short German with a heavy voice, for which he seemed reluctantly responsible, and rather grieved at its possession—­stood up for Mrs. Tretherick, and averred that they were jealous of her because she was “bretty.”  The climax was at last reached in an open quarrel, wherein Mrs. Tretherick used her tongue with such precision of statement and epithet that the soprano burst into hysterical tears, and had to be supported from the choir by her husband and the tenor.  This act was marked intentionally to the congregation by the omission of the usual soprano solo.  Mrs. Tretherick went home flushed with triumph, but on reaching her room frantically told Carry that they were beggars henceforward; that she—­her mother—­had just taken the very bread out of her darling’s mouth, and ended by bursting into a flood of penitent tears.  They did not come so quickly as in her old poetical days; but when they came they stung deeply.  She was roused by a formal visit from a vestryman—­one of the music committee.  Mrs. Tretherick dried her long lashes, put on a new neck ribbon, and went down to the parlor.  She staid there two hours—­a fact that might have occasioned some remark but that the vestryman was married, and had a family of grownup daughters.  When Mrs. Tretherick returned to her room, she sang to herself in the glass and scolded Carry—­but she retained her place in the choir.

It was not long, however.  In due course of time, her enemies received a powerful addition to their forces in the committeeman’s wife.  That lady called upon several of the church members and on Dr. Cope’s family.  The result was that, at a later meeting of the music committee, Mrs. Tretherick’s voice was declared inadequate to the size of the building and she was invited to resign.  She did so.  She had been out of a situation for two months, and her scant means were almost exhausted, when Ah Fe’s unexpected treasure was tossed into her lap.

The gray fog deepened into night, and the street lamps started into shivering life as, absorbed in these unprofitable memories, Mrs. Tretherick still sat drearily at her window.  Even Carry had slipped away unnoticed; and her abrupt entrance with the damp evening paper in her hand roused Mrs. Tretherick, and brought her back to an active realization of the present.  For Mrs. Tretherick was wont to scan the advertisements in the faint hope of finding some avenue of employment—­she knew not what—­open to her needs; and Carry had noted this habit.

Mrs. Tretherick mechanically closed the shutters, lit the lights, and opened the paper.  Her eye fell instinctively on the following paragraph in the telegraphic column: