the delicate white fingers, by the grace about
the silvering hair, by the voice so low and
musical, she has been nurtured tenderly, and
known ease and comfort, if not wealth; but
by those well-worn and coarse widow's-weeds,
there has been a long divorcement. The
boy has everything about him bright and
new: the blue jacket and the band of gold
round his cap—which he especially delights
in—proclaim the middy; and he is going to
join his ship for the first time. There will
be a little trembling of the lip at the very
last, but that will be all. He is his mother's
son, and, if I read him aright, he will not
fear the wildest of seas nor the fiercest of
battles; and what would I not give to see
his mother's looks when first she reads his
name in the Gazette of victory! What an
interest in the boy this climate-hardened
soldier seems to take. He has come from
revisiting, on furlough, his old home after
years of absence, and from gladdening the
old couple, his parents, to the core. Content
for all their lives to dwell within their
native hamlet, without a dream of those
alien skies which had so bronzed his cheek,
they have drunk in his tales like children
listening to fairy lore. Their simple pleasure
will be from henceforth to retail to neighbour
ears these records of their soldier son.
"Just the same, bless ye, just the same as
ever," is their George—or, at least, so he
seems to them; and, indeed, though his look
is somewhat stern, his fringed lips somewhat
too tightly barred, he has still a dutiful if not
a loving heart. How he is looked up to by
his fellow travellers, especially by the female
portion of them, and how they will strive to
get in the same compartment!

Such characters as these I almost always
find among my fellow-travellers by the
parliamentary; but in addition, at a small
railway-station in the north, in the summer
of eighteen hundred and forty-five, as I well
remember, I saw for the first time this
figure. A somewhat stiff-looking but lady-
like girl about the age whereat the "Brook
and river meet, womanhood and childhood
fleet," who held in one hand a small basket,
and in the other a book. She was dressed
well, but very plainly, in dove-coloured silk,
and seemed in no way disconcerted. As
she was amongst the crowd with no one to
take care of her, I offered—as the train
came slowly up—to see that her luggage was
put in; but she held up, first the basket and
then the book, and remarked quietly, "I
have nothing more, I thank you, sir." She
was going to London then, for I had seen
her buy her ticket with that doll's fit-out!
I managed to obtain for her a corner-seat
with back to the engine, and placed myself
beside her. The country through which we
were then passing was very beautiful; on
one side, lay the level cornland with the crops
either standing ripe or bound in sheaves, and
whilst we cut across the quiet country
lanes the loaded waggons waited at the long
railway-gates to let us pass; on the other
was mostly pasture-land and green valleys,
which were shut to the westward with grey
hills; but the girl never looked to this or
that, or raised her eyes from off the pages
open before her; they were not so very
entrancing one would have thought to such as
she—the Life of Charles the Twelfth (in
French) by Monsieur Voltaire. After a while
I saw she never turned one leaf over, but
used it as a mere pretext for thinking undisturbed.
When we had been journeying many
hours, and even when we arrived in a large
manufacturing town where we were to stop a
little, and everybody was getting out for
refreshments, I offered to procure her some;
but she opened her basket, by way of reply,
and took from it a mighty hunch of bread
and butter, and consumed that, sitting quietly
where she was; it was not in the shape of a
sandwich, but just such a wedge as forms the
morning-meal in educational establishments,
and I said, "Where do you go to school, my
dear young lady?" quite naturally. Her
perfectly self-controlled and quite grown-up
appearance seemed to be greatly disturbed.

"I do not see why I should tell you, sir,"
said she, colouring.

"Very true," replied I. "I merely wished
to become friends with you; but as you will
not talk, may I ask you to change books with
me, for I perceive you are not greatly
interested in that one."

She did so; and I found, as I had expected,
in the title-page of her school-volume, her
address and name; Miss Jeannette Smith,
Miss Mackaveth's, Laburnum Lodge, Carlisle.

"How came you with that foreign accent
of yours, Miss Smith?" I asked.

She looked at me for one instant a little
tigerishly, but presently began to laugh.

"You are too wise for me," she said, "but
I have left school now for good. I am going
to my friends in London, they are French
people; that is why I talk a little strangely,
as you say."

And Miss Jeannette Smith applied herself
to the subject of my late studies—Cripps
upon Chemical Law, I think it was—with
the same enthusiasm that she had bestowed
upon the monarch of Sweden.

"Is it customary," said I, returning to
the charge, after a while, "for Miss Mackaveth's
young ladies to travel in third-class
carriages, alone, when they return to their
friends?"

"When they are very poor, sir; not
unless;" was the answer delivered in a
firm tone, and not without a touch of reproach.

This poor child, solitary amidst so many;
not exhibiting annoyance at the draughts,
tobacco-smoke, and other discomforts of her
position; content to bear her lot without