waiting-room door, and looking out wistfully
until the time had passed.

Then the cloud of officials emerged, doors
were shut loudly, men and women gathered at
the edge and looked out anxiously as for someone
to take them off, signals began to toss their
arms violently, and a distant bell to sound. There
came in a St. Alans train, which, as before,
opened its sides, and broke into life with all
the quickness of a pantomime trick.

The two girls stood, each leaning on an arm
of their uncle. Both faces were full of anxiety;
but the younger leant forward, fluttering as if
she were going to fly, and searching every face
she met. Captain Diamond had first thought of
applying the skilful advice of the porter Mentor
to the present case, but broke down in a moment,
bewildered by the crowd of faces. But the two
sisters were at work. Suddenly the younger
broke from her uncle's arm, and called out,

"There, there he is! I see him. Oh, uncle,
uncle, look!"

"And see," said her sister, calmly, "he has
got our bag all safe. I can see it in his hand."

"And oh, sister," said the younger girl, "he
is safe. He looks quite safe. Oh, it would have
been dreadful had he been hurt."

"Where, where, dears," said the captain, now
quite bewildered, and looking a little wildly at
everybody, " I can see nothing. Though, to be
sure, I don't know him yet."

"Oh, and you will thank him," said the
younger, " won't you, uncle? Here he is."

"Why, Heaven preserve us, it's Tillotson!"
said he, as that gentleman came up. "My dear
friend Tillotson, is this you? Indeed I know
him, dears. Ah! You are not hurt, are you?"

"Here is the bag," said Mr. Tillotson. "It
had a very narrow escape. Some one was walking
away with it just as I entered."

"How shall we ever thank you," the young
girl said, earnestly, and with sparkling eyes.
"And you were in such dreadful danger, too."

"Yes," said Mr. Tillotson, gravely. "I am
afraid it was altogether a mad act. Had it been
you, or your sister, or a fellow-creature, there
would have been some excuse. As it is, I
perhaps deserve to lose my life for such a trick."

The young girl seemed hurt and awed by this
speech, and shrank away on to her uncle's
arm.

"So," he went on, "Captain Diamond, you
know these ladies?"

"Know them!" said the captain, smiling, "they
are my new nieces, just come to me from France,
and who are to do me the honour of staying with
me. I am going to give up being a solitary
good-for-nothing bachelor for ever. But, now,
wasn't it the oddest thing in the world that you
should come across them, and that we three
should come to know each other in this sort of
way? I really can hardly make it out. It seems
as if it were ordained."

"Oh, uncle, and if you knew how kind this
gentleman has been, how he risked his safety to
help us," said the young girl, with a wonderful
fervour and a half shy air, and addressing this
speech not to her uncle, but to Mr. Tillotson.

But he had become abstracted. "As I said
before, you make too much of it. It is a mere
trifle."

"So is everything good that you do a mere
trifle, Tillotson," said Captain Diamond, eagerly.
"If he gives a hundred pounds to a charity, it is
a trifle. If he does some other fine thing, that is
a trifle also. We don't think them trifles, I can
tell you, Tillotson."

Mr. Tillotson was looking up and down wearily.
These compliments were tiring him. "I must
go and look after my things," he said, moving
away. "I am glad to have been of some use to
somebody. But I hope you won't think of it
any more." He bowed to the ladies, and went
away.

The young girl looked after him wistfully, and
with mortification in her face. "He won't let
us thank him even, uncle," she said, despondingly.
"How odd of him! One would think
we had offended him."

"That is only his way," said the captain,
earnestly. "He is the most noble, generous,
amiable fellow. I am so glad he is come back.
And you must help me to shake him up,
dears, for his life is very gloomy. And you
don't know all he has gone through. Some of
these evenings, when we are all sitting by the
fire, and you, dears, have nothing better to do
than to listen to me, I'll tell you about him.
Now shall we get a cab?"

"Oh, then he has a history," said the younger
girl, eagerly.

"Poor, poor fellow!" said Captain Diamond,
with deep feeling. "But come, we have had no
time to talk to each other. Let me look at you,
dears. I am so glad to have you with me, I am
indeed. And now you won't mind waiting here
while I go and get the luggage?"

And Captain Diamond, putting them in a safe
place under the clock and out of the crowd,
limped away towards the luggage-van, looking
back now and again to encourage them.

CHAPTER II. MR. TILLOTSON "GOES HOME."

MR. TILLOTSON had left the White Hart very
early. It was a gloomy shivering morning, and
as an ancient country fly drove him up to the
station, he saw the great cathedral looking
uncomfortably through a bluish atmosphere. He
went his way out of that town more hopeless and
cheerless than he had entered.

He had a lonely carriage- one all to himself-
from whose window he could see all the objects
of the country: the raw stone houses, the cold
bridges, the stray brick house standing by itself
(emblem of his own condition), sweeping by, all
wrapped in the same blue uncomfortable
morning tone. He looked back, and he saw the
same tone upon his whole life; he looked
forward, and it was there before him also. He
might have been in a penitential cell, and could
not have been more dull and hopeless.

Gradually the day began to brighten. They
passed many towns and stations. At a great