Gid snapped his fingers and forgot himself so far again as to scowl.

“Well, you’re cross to-night; I’ll say that for you, Larry,” he declared, bluntly, and then turned back into the boiler-room and shut the door.

“There is something wrong, and no mistake about it,” was Larry’s conviction as he hurried home.

He was not too deeply worried to eat—­a healthy boy seldom is.  His mother was more cheerful than she had been at dinner-time; or, at least, she made an effort to appear so.

“Has everything gone well to-day, Larry?” she asked, as he rose from the table.

“As well as I could expect.  There are one or two annoying fellows at the works, and they’re envious because the super lets me run the big engine.  They think I’m too young.”

“It is a responsible position, Larry, and it makes me proud of you to feel that you fill it so well.”

“It isn’t hard to do; only I have to keep my wits about me.  It wouldn’t do to forget anything; and you know they say a boy will forget.”

“All boys are not alike, Larry, and your father would not trust you unless he felt sure you would always be careful.”

Larry could not rest at ease until he had assured himself that it was all right to leave Gid in charge of the works for the night; and, without telling his mother what his errand was, he went out to find Mr. Gardner, the superintendent.

The gentleman’s house was half a mile distant and fully a mile from the shops.

Larry hurried thither.  To his surprise, Belle, the superintendent’s daughter, came to the door.  She was a sweet-faced girl, a year or two older than Larry, although they had been in school together.

“I was just going out,” she said, after greeting him, “and so I answered your ring.  Did you wish to see my father?”

“Yes, if you please,” Larry answered.

“Then you will have to wait, and I don’t know how long.  It was time for him to be here an hour ago, and he is usually punctual; but he hasn’t come.”

She noticed, the troubled look on his face, and asked, a trifle anxiously: 

“Anything the matter, Larry?”

“I—­I think not; but if he comes, you may tell him my errand.  And I will go back, and perhaps I may meet him.”

Larry explained about the watchman’s absence, and then, with a deepening foreboding at his heart, he hurried back toward the immense buildings of the Tioga Iron Company.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

A VILLAGE HAMPDEN.

by ANTONY E. ANDERSON.

It was Saturday evening, and the slender hands of the clock in the village schoolhouse were just crossing each other in their eager haste to tell the Berryville Literary Society that it was nearly ten o’clock, and time to put out the lights.

The girls had taken the hint when the clock struck the quarter-hour, and they were chattering like a group of magpies in the darkest corner of the room as they helped each other with their cloaks and wraps.