train through Portsmouth to the Isle of
Wight.

There was time to snatch a hasty breakfast;
and, at thirty-five minutes past seven,
a. m., precisely, we were standing in the midst
of a dense crowd of pleasure-seekers at the
Waterloo terminus of the South Western
Railway. It was a dense crowd truly, and
the pushing to get tickets was, we admit, not
the most agreeeable thing to undergo. We
have seen still denser crowds; have undergone
more pushing on a Jenny Lind, or
Grisi night at the Italian Opera; yet the
crowd—forgive us, opera-going reader—was
not a whit more unmannerly at the doors of
the Waterloo booking-office, than that at the
entrance to the opera.

At length we started—many hundreds of
us. All very common people, doubtless, but
all bent alike, on a day's thorough happiness.
And, after a brief interval of chimney-pots,
and Lambeth factories, we found the sun
shining brightly upon us, the trees and fields
looking absolutely green, and the clouds
coloured only by the morning sun's reflection,
untinted by the smallest particle of soot. We
were in the country.

And now we all began to look about us,
and to set ourselves to work in earnest, at
the business we had come about. We had
left London for the sole purpose of enjoying
ourselves, and so the sooner we commenced
doing it the better. Acquaintances were
quickly formed amongst the fellow-passengers;
the etiquette of introduction not being
indispensable in excursion trains, we had
not left London half an hour, before we
were in friendly communion with all around
us, chatting away as busily as though we had
been friends for years; albeit, we are somewhat
taciturn by nature, and have travelled
the whole distance between Liverpool and
London shut up with five others, in a first-
class carriage, and have heard no single word
exchanged on all the journey, further than
every one on starting, saying it was a fine
morning, and every one replying, "Very."
We have, therefore, come to the conclusion
that there is some hidden excitant in excursion
trains to conversation.

Our nearest neighbour, we blushed to
believe, was a shoemaker. We fear, indeed, that
that was not the worst; and that, moreover,
he must have been a depraved shoemaker;
for, not content with travelling on a Sunday,
he had the further villany openly to violate
the law, in defiance of the railway regulations,
forty-shilling fines, and all statutes and
bye-laws in that case made and provided,
coolly to pull out his tobacco-pouch, and
hope that no one objected to smoking?

Object to smoking! Not a bit of it. No
one objects to anything in an excursion train.
Even the railway officials themselves did not
object: for, as we stopped at different stations—
our friend's example having been pretty generally
followed—cigars and pipes innumerable
were openly smoked in the very face of the
hostile bye-law, sometimes (by accident) even
in the faces of the railway porters. And, as
the fresh strong breeze sweeping through those
open carriages, carried far away the clouds
as soon as formed, the daintiest maiden could
not have objected.

All this, it must be owned, was very low.
Nor was the character of the assembly much
improved by the production from various
coat-pockets of sundry bottles; some of which,
we are afraid we must admit, were filled with
beer, others it may be with the still less
reputable gin-and-water. One thing we are
convinced of—it was not claret, or burgundy,
or champagne.

Facing us sat an old woman, dressed in a
gown of very seedy black. For some time
she had been silent; but, as the train went
on, she too had yielded to the mysterious
influence, and had become quite chatty. Her
first attempt at conversation occurred when we
were about half-way on our journey. She had
then timidly ventured to inquire, if we were
not near Portsmouth. On being answered in
the negative, she once more sank back into
silence. Again and again, at intervals of
very few minutes, the same question was
put; until, being told that she must wait at
least another hour, she seemed resolved to
make the best of it, and set hard to work at
eating bread-and-butter. All kinds of
luggage, were strictly prohibited in the excursion
train; but by a dexterous adjustment of
her shawl at the station, the old lady had
managed to smuggle in her basket. As time
went on, she grew impatient, and often strained
her eyes across the landscape in hopes to
catch a glimpse of anything that looked like
Portsmouth. No wonder she was anxious.
When she, at last, became communicative, we
learned that she was going down to see her
son. His ship had arrived at Spithead but
the day before, and as "she hadn't seen the
poor dear boy for nigh upon two year, she
thought she might spare a few shillings just
to see him now he was in England. It wasn't
often that she spent money for her own pleasure,
for she had three other children quite
dependent on her, and it was very little she
could do for them." Poor woman! A very
common person we have no doubt. In fact,
we know she was, for she accepted beer when
the bottle was handed to her by a neighbour,
and thanked him kindly for it. Common
though she was, the mother's heart blessed
the invention of excursion trains.

There was a young gentleman seated in a
corner of our carriage, who studiously avoided
any intercourse with his fellow-passengers.
He must have been a lawyer's clerk, or some
one else accustomed to move in good society.
He smoked cigars, whichhe carried in an
elaborately-embroidered case, and drank brandy-
and-water, to which he used a glass,—a luxury
not common in that carriage; the majority
drinking from the neck of the bottle. This poor