ten!" cried the lady, "for the guard says the train will
move on in a moment."

As Trenholme knew that the little French conductor thus grandly quoted
did not know when the train would start, and as in his experience the
train, whatever else it did, never hastened, he did not move with the
sudden agility that was desired. Before he turned he heard a
loud-whispered aside from the lady: "Tell him we'll pay him
double--treble, for it; I have heard they are avaricious."

When Trenholme had started the train he jumped upon it with the milk. He
found himself in a long car. The double seats on either side were filled
with sleepy people. There was a passage down the middle, and the lamps
above shone dimly through dirty glasses. Trenholme could not immediately
see any one like the man who had spoken to him outside, but he did spy
out a baby, and, jug in hand, he went and stood a moment near it.

The lady who held the baby sat upright, with her head leaning against
the side of the car. She was dozing, and the baby was also asleep. It
was a rosy, healthy child, about a year old. The lady's handsome face
suggested she was about seven-and-twenty. Among all the shawl-wrapped
heaps of restless humanity around them, this pair looked very lovely
together. The dusty lamplight fell upon them. They seemed to Trenholme
like a beautiful picture of mother and child, such as one sometimes
comes upon among the evil surroundings of old frames and hideous prints.

Said Trenholme aloud: "I don't know who asked me for the milk."

The lady stirred and looked at him indifferently. She seemed very
beautiful. Men see with different eyes in these matters, but in
Trenholme's eyes this lady was faultless, and her face and air touched
some answering mood of reverence in his heart. It rarely happens,
however, that we can linger gazing at the faces which possess for us the
most beauty. The train was getting up speed, and Trenholme, just then
catching sight of the couple who had asked for the milk, had no choice
but to pass down the car and pour it into the jar they held.

The gentleman put his hand in his pocket. "Oh no," said Trenholme, and
went out. But the more lively lady reopened the door behind him, and
threw a coin on the ground as he was descending.

By the sound it had made Trenholme found it, and saw by the light of the
passing car that it was an English shilling. When the train was gone he
stood a minute where it had carried him, some hundre