The concert had long been over and the room was less crowded when Thomas sauntered back to the pair.

“Well, good-night,” he said.  “Guess you can find your way home, Mr. Hamilton;” and he gave Joe a long wink.

“Goo’-night,” said Joe, woozily, “I be a’ ri’.  Goo’-night.”

“Make it another ’skey,” was Hattie’s farewell remark.

* * * * *

It was late the next morning when Joe got home.  He had a headache and a sense of triumph that not even his illness and his mother’s reproof could subdue.

He had promised Hattie to come often to the club.

X

A VISITOR FROM HOME

Mrs. Hamilton began to question very seriously whether she had done the best thing in coming to New York as she saw her son staying away more and more and growing always farther away from her and his sister.  Had she known how and where he spent his evenings, she would have had even greater cause to question the wisdom of their trip.  She knew that although he worked he never had any money for the house, and she foresaw the time when the little they had would no longer suffice for Kitty and her.  Realising this, she herself set out to find something to do.

It was a hard matter, for wherever she went seeking employment, it was always for her and her daughter, for the more she saw of Mrs. Jones, the less she thought it well to leave the girl under her influence.  Mrs. Hamilton was not a keen woman, but she had a mother’s intuitions, and she saw a subtle change in her daughter.  At first the girl grew wistful and then impatient and rebellious.  She complained that Joe was away from them so much enjoying himself, while she had to be housed up like a prisoner.  She had receded from her dignified position, and twice of an evening had gone out for a car-ride with Thomas; but as that gentleman never included the mother in his invitation, she decided that her daughter should go no more, and she begged Joe to take his sister out sometimes instead.  He demurred at first, for he now numbered among his city acquirements a fine contempt for his woman relatives.  Finally, however, he consented, and took Kit once to the theatre and once for a ride.  Each time he left her in the care of Thomas as soon as they were out of the house, while he went to find or to wait for his dear Hattie.  But his mother did not know all this, and Kit did not tell her.  The quick poison of the unreal life about her had already begun to affect her character.  She had grown secretive and sly.  The innocent longing which in a burst of enthusiasm she had expressed that first night at the theatre was growing into a real ambition with her, and she dropped the simple old songs she knew to practise the detestable coon ditties which the stage demanded.