p of their speed beneath a single umbrella,
with a crowd of impatient passengers watching and waiting for them.
And I grieve to say that, being a happy American crowd, there was some
irreverent humor. "Go it, sis! He's gainin' on you!" "Keep it up!"
"Steady, sonny! Don't prance!" "No fancy licks! You were nearly over the
traces that time!" "Keep up to the pole!" (i. e. the umbrella). "Don't
crowd her off the track! Just swing on together; you'll do it."

Randolph had glanced quickly at his companion. She was laughing, yet
looking at him shyly as if wondering how HE was taking it. The paddle
wheels were beginning to revolve. Another rush, and they were on board
as the plank was drawn in.

But they were only on the edge of a packed and seething crowd. Randolph
managed, however, to force a way for her to an angle of the paddle box,
where they were comparatively alone although still exposed to the rain.
She recognized their enforced companionship by dropping her grasp of the
umbrella, which she had hitherto been holding over him with a singular
kind of mature superiority very like--as Randolph felt--her manner to
the boy.

"You have left your little friend?" he said, grasping at the idea for a
conversational opening.

"My little cousin? Yes," she said. "I left him with friends. I could not
bear to make him run any risk in this weather. But," she hesitated half
apologetically, half mischievously, "perhaps I hurried you."

"Oh, no," said Randolph quickly. "This is the last boat, and I must be
at the bank to-morrow morning at nine."

"And I must be at the shop at eight," she said. She did not speak
bitterly or pointedly, nor yet with the entire familiarity of custom.
He noticed that her dress was indeed plainer, and yet she seemed quite
concerned over the water-soaked state of that cheap thin silk pelerine
and merino skirt. A big lump was in his throat.

"Do you know," he said desperately, yet trying to laugh, "that this is
not the first time you have seen me dripping?"

"Yes," she returned, looking at him interestedly; "it was outside of the
druggist's in Montgomery Street, about four months ago. You were wetter
then even than you are now."

"I was hungry, friendless, and penniless, Miss Avondale." He had spoken
thus abruptly in the faint hope that the revelation might equalize their
present condition; but somehow his confession, now that it was uttered,
seemed exceedingly weak and impotent. Then he blundered in a d