“Oh, I drink it,” said the boy with an air, but not looking at his mother.

“Joe,” she cried to him, “you must ricollect you ain’t at home.  What ’ud yo’ pa think?” Then she stopped suddenly, and Joe gulped his beer and Kitty went to the piano to relieve her embarrassment.

“Yes, that ’s it, Miss Kitty, sing us something,” said the irrepressible Thomas, “an’ after while we ’ll have that fellah down that plays ‘Rag-time.’  He ‘s out o’ sight, I tell you.”

With the pretty shyness of girlhood, Kitty sang one or two little songs in the simple manner she knew.  Her voice was full and rich.  It delighted Mr. Thomas.

“I say, that ‘s singin’ now, I tell you,” he cried.  “You ought to have some o’ the new songs.  D’ jever hear ‘Baby, you got to leave’?  I tell you, that ’s a hot one.  I ’ll bring you some of ’em.  Why, you could git a job on the stage easy with that voice o’ yourn.  I got a frien’ in one o’ the comp’nies an’ I ’ll speak to him about you.”

“You ought to git Mr. Thomas to take you to the th’atre some night.  He goes lots.”

“Why, yes, what ’s the matter with to-morrer night?  There ’s a good coon show in town.  Out o’ sight.  Let ’s all go.”

“I ain’t nevah been to nothin’ lak dat, an’ I don’t know,” said Mrs. Hamilton.

“Aw, come, I ‘ll git the tickets an’ we ‘ll all go.  Great singin’, you know.  What d’ you say?”

The mother hesitated, and Joe filled the breach.

“We ‘d all like to go,” he said.  “Ma, we’ ll go if you ain’t too tired.”

“Tired?  Pshaw, you ’ll furgit all about your tiredness when Smithkins gits on the stage.  Y’ ought to hear him sing, ‘I bin huntin’ fu’ wo’k’!  You ’d die laughing.”

Mrs. Hamilton made no further demur, and the matter was closed.

Awhile later the “Rag-time” man came down and gave them a sample of what they were to hear the next night.  Mr. Thomas and Mrs. Jones two-stepped, and they sent a boy after some more beer.  Joe found it a very jolly evening, but Kit’s and the mother’s hearts were heavy as they went up to bed.

“Say,” said Mr. Thomas when they had gone, “that little girl ’s a peach, you bet; a little green, I guess, but she ’ll ripen in the sun.”

VIII

AN EVENING OUT

Fannie Hamilton, tired as she was, sat long into the night with her little family discussing New York,—­its advantages and disadvantages, its beauty and its ugliness, its morality and immorality.  She had somewhat receded from her first position, that it was better being here in the great strange city than being at home where the very streets shamed them.  She had not liked the way that their fellow lodger looked at Kitty.  It was bold, to say the least.  She was not pleased, either, with their new acquaintance’s familiarity.  And yet, he had said no more than some stranger, if there could be such a stranger, would