behind the dashboard,
and the driver was waiting for her.

He could afford to wait, as it would be some hours before another train
would be in.

There was no door to open in that "carriage." It was all door except the
top and bottom, and the pretty passenger was neither helped nor hindered
in finding her place on the back seat.

If the flagman was more disposed to ask questions than to answer them,
Michael said few words of any kind except to his horse. To him, indeed,
he kept up a constant stream of encouraging remarks, the greatest part
of which would have been difficult for an ordinary hearer to understand.

Very likely the horse knew what they meant; for he came very near
breaking from a limp into a trot several times, under the stimulus of
all that clucking and "G'lang, now!"

The distance was by no means great, and Michael seemed to know the way
perfectly. At least he answered, "Yes'm, indade," to several inquiries
from his passenger, and she was compelled to be satisfied with that.

"What a big house it is! And painters at work on it too," she exclaimed,
just as Michael added a vigorous jerk of the reins to the "Whoa!" with
which he stopped his nag in front of an open gate.

"Are you sure this is the place?"

"Yes'm; fifty cints, mum."

By the time the trunk was out of the carriage and swung inside of the
gate, the young lady had followed; but for some reason Michael at once
sprang back to his place, and whipped up his limping steed. It may have
been from the fear of being asked to take that trunk into the house, for
it was not a small one. The young lady stood for a moment irresolute,
and then left it where it was, and walked on up to the house.

No bell; no knocker. The workmen had not reached that part of their
improvements yet. But the door was open; and a very neatly furnished
parlor at the left of the hall seemed to say, "Come right in, please;"
and in she went.

Such an arrival could not possibly have escaped the notice of the
inmates of the house; and, as the young lady from the railway came in at
the front, another and a very different-looking lady marched through to
the parlor from the rear.

Each one would have been a puzzle to the other, if the elder of the two
had not been Mrs. Kinzer, and the widow had never been very much puzzled
in all her life. At all events, she put out her hand, with a cordial
smile, saying,--

"Miss Foster, is it not? I am Mrs. Kinzer. How could he have made su