hat gentleman, promptly.

"At any rate," Mrs. Rindge continued, "we all began to play, although
we were ready to blow up with laughter, and after a while Georgie looked
around and said, 'What, are you there yet?' My dear, you ought to
have seen the conductor's face! He said it was his duty to establish
Georgie's identity, or something like that, and Georgie told him to
get off at the next station and buy Waring's Magazine--was that it,
Georgie?"

"How the deuce should I know?"

"Well, some such magazine. Georgie said he'd find an article in it
on the Railroad Kings and Princes of America, and that his picture,
Georgie's, was among the very first!" At this juncture in her narrative
Mrs. Rindge shrieked with laughter, in which she was joined by Mrs. Kame
and Hugh; and she pointed a forefinger across the table at Mr. Pembroke,
who went on solemnly eating his dinner. "Georgie gave him ten cents
with which to buy the magazine," she added a little hysterically. "Well,
there was a frightful row, and a lot of men came down to that end of the
car, and we had to shut the door. The conductor said the most outrageous
things, and Georgie pretended to be very indignant, too, and gave him
the tickets under protest. He told Georgie he ought to be in an asylum
for the criminally insane, and Georgie advised him to get a photograph
album of the high officials of the railroad. The conductor said
Georgie's picture was probably in the rogue's gallery. And we lost two
packs of cards out of the window."

Such had been the more innocent if eccentric diversions with which they
had whiled away the time. When dinner was ended, a renewal of the bridge
game was proposed, for it had transpired at the dinner-table that Mrs.
Rindge and Hugh had been partners all day, as a result of which there
was a considerable balance in their favour. This balance Mr. Pembroke
was palpably anxious to wipe out, or at least to reduce. But Mrs. Kame
insisted that Honora should cut in, and the others supported her.

"We tried our best to get a man for you," said Mrs. Rindge to Honora.
"Didn't we, Abby? But in the little time we had, it was impossible. The
only man we saw was Ned Carrington, and Hugh said he didn't think you'd
want him."

"Hugh showed a rare perception," said Honora.

Be it recorded that she smiled. One course had been clear to her from
the first, although she found it infinitely difficult to follow; she was
determined, cost what it might, to carr