sate down beside her and whispered: I saw her
start as she looked at us; and again a thrill of
pride passed through me. He was telling her
the Indian episode.

"Let us go," she said, rising; "I grow sick.
Let us get unto the fresh air again." And,
gathering up her skirts, she passed out
hastily

Extraordinary young person! Why should she
grow sick? It struck me at the time that her
mind must have been affected. It was altogether
very flattering, but getting uncomfortable.

An old gentleman in a bright waistcoat, leaning
his chin on a stick, placed himself in the seat
exactly opposite to my son; and, leaning over,
whispered to him hoarsely,

"Well, now it's over, it was a long business
and a weary one!"

My brave boy looked down confused: he is
as modest as a girl.

"We did our best," he said, smiling, "and
pulled through somehow."

"You had a poor chance from the beginning:
I always said so," the old gentleman
went on.

"Perhaps so," said my son; "but the enemy
was too strong for us to do much!"

"There was a fair trial," said the other, firing
up, "and a jury of the British nation. What
more would you ask!"

"I would have risked my life a thousand
times," said my son, with a generous warmth,
"to have brought away the body of the poor
murdered lady; but burdened as I was with
three others on my crupper—"

"God bless my soul, I never heard that!"

"It is true, sir," my son added, with a little
heat.

"Yes, sir," I struck in, " Christian charity
and that holy religion of which I trust we are
common members, teaches—"

He was looking at me in such blank astonishment
that I stopped. I thought I heard him
murmur,

"Well, this beats—"

Official at the window again, with a nod:

"I say, we have made it all right about the
Wan; telegraphed down, eh?"

"Thank you a thousand times," I answered;
"why put yourself to such trouble?"

He stopped, looked at me with a comic expression,
then went his way, smiling. Most
extraordinary!

The bell, a scream of the whistle, and we go
off. The old gentleman is our only companion,
but my brave boy, wounded by the tone of his
last remarks, declines conversation. The cold
of the night pierces into my bones. I am racked
with pains: all my joints are being fractured.
As the night advances, the old gentleman stoops
forward, and in the same low whisper, which I
hear perfectly, asks,

"It is fixed for Saturday fortnight, is it
not?"

"What is fixed?" said my brave boy, who was
a little sleepy.

"The—the—you know—the public Reception,"
I add, wishing to help him out.

He looked at me again with astonishment.

"Public reception? Well, you do speak
of it coolly."

"Yes," said I, proudly, "it is enough to turn
one's head."

"Turn one's head!" he said. "This is very
bad—very bad!"

"Bad!" I answered, indignantly; "I am proud
of it—I glory in it."

"Then may Heaven soften your heart!" he
said.

I gave this person up as insane also. All the
principal stations, I could see, were advised of
our coming: for men—porters with lanterns—
would come to the window under flimsy pretence
of making us show our tickets, and would
stare. At Rugby a long, thin, white-tied person
came in, with a lantern, too (in his jaws), sat
down directly opposite to me, and fixing his eyes
plaintively on me, began to snuffle.

"Officer," he said at last, turning to my son,
—"officer, give me leave to speak a few words
to this poor man upon his state. Has he shown
any signs of an awakening, officer?"

I hear my son, who has been lying back with
his head on the cushion, murmur out that " he
doesn't know—can't say, indeed."

"Officer," the clergyman goes on, " does he
show insensibility? Hath he found a balm, a
cure?"

Though inclined to resent a little the inquisitive
character of these interrogatories, " Sir,"
I answer, with courtesy—"sir, I have tried
nearly every known remedy, and am sorry to
say have as yet found no relief. I despair of a
cure."

"Have you tried—?"

"Tried? Tried what?" I interrupted, impatiently.

"Poor, blinded, lost sheep. Hopelessly stiff-
necked!" Another snuffle.

"You may say that," I said; "I'm in a vice.
The drugs do me no good. Even he," I say,
pointing to my sleeping son, "would make me
try a little in the poison lin; he said it was a
violent remedy, and so it was: I think it has
done for me."

"Hardened beyond redemption!" said the
layman. " Officer, do you hear this?"

"Perhaps," said I, a light suddenly breaking
upon me, "you may be the retired clergyman
of the papers, who has suffered so much, and
are willing, for two postage-stamps, to impart
the secret to others, 'To nervous sufferers?'
Don't you know I am a nervous sufferer?"

"He is hardened—he will die impenitent,"
said the clergyman. " Oh, think, think an instant,
poor lost sheep, how——"

"Sir," I said, with dignity, " you have applied
that epithet to me once before. I
am neither poor, nor lost, nor, as far as I
know, a sheep. It is free, very free of you indeed."

"With your sands of life running out" (no