“Does Mr. Fry live here?”

“Yes.”

“Can I speak to him?”

“Yes.  Come in, miss.”

Susan stepped in.

The man slammed the door.

Susan wished herself on its other side.

“My name is Fry.  What is your pleasure with me?”

“Mr. Fry, I am so glad I have found you.  I am come here from a friend of yours.”

“From a friend of mine??!!” said Fry, with a mystified air.

“Yes; from Mr. Eden.  Here is the book, Mr. Fry; poor Mr. Eden could not bring it you himself, but you see he has written your name on the cover with his own hand.”

Fry took the book from Susan’s hand, and in so doing observed that she was lovely; so to make her a return for bringing him “Uncle Tom,” and for being so pretty, Fry for once in his life felt generous, and repaid her by volunteering to show her the prison—­indulgent Fry!

To his surprise Susan did not jump at this remuneration.  On the contrary, she said hastily: 

“Oh! no! no! no!”

Then, seeing by his face that her new acquaintance thought her a madwoman, she added: 

“That is, yes!  I think I should like to see it a little—­a very little—­but if I do you must keep close by me, Mr. Fry.”

“Why of course I shall keep with you,” replied Fry somewhat contemptuously.  “No strangers admitted except in company of an officer.”

Susan still hung fire.

“But you mustn’t go to show me the very wicked ones.”

“Why they are all pretty much of a muchness for that.”

“I mean the murderers—­I couldn’t bear such a sight.”

“Got none,” said Fry sorrowfully; “parted with the last of that sort four months ago—­up at eight down at nine you understand, miss.”

Happily Susan did not understand this brutal allusion; and, not to show her ignorance, she said nothing, but passed to a second stipulation—­“And, Mr. Fry, I know the men that set fire to Farmer Dean’s ricks are in this jail; I won’t see them; they would give me such a turn, for that seems to me the next crime after murder to destroy the crops after the very weather has spared them.”

Fry smiled superior; then he said sarcastically: 

“Don’t you be frightened, some of our lot are beauties; your friend the parson is as fond of some of ’em as a cow is of her calf.”

“Oh! then show me those ones.”  Fry took her to one or two cells.  Whenever he opened a cell door she always clutched him on both ribs, and this tickled Fry, so did her simplicity.

At last he came to Robinson’s cell.

“In here there is a sulky chap.”

“Oh! then let us go on to the next.”

“But this is one his reverence is uncommon fond of,” said Fry, with a sneer and a chuckle; so he flung open the door, and if the man had not hung his head Susan would hardly have recognized in his uniform corduroy and close-cropped hair the vulgar Adonis who had sat glittering opposite her at table the last time they met.