s a man above other men. And if that had been so, was he
less or more now than he had been then? Had he been a benefit to the new
country to which he had come? Had the move from the Old World to
this--the decision in which she had rashly aided with youthful
advice--been a good or a bad thing for him and for the people to whom he
had come?

From this she fell a-thinking upon her own life as, in the light of
Trenholme's letter, the contrast of her present womanly self with the
bright, audacious girl of that past time was set strongly before her. It
is probably as rare for any one really to wish to be the self of any
former time--to wish to be younger--as it is really to wish to be any
one else. Sophia certainly did not dream of wishing to be younger. We
are seldom just to ourselves--either past or present: Sophia had a fine
scorn for what she remembered herself to have been; she had greater
respect for her present self, because there was less of outward show,
and more of reality.

It might have been a quarter of an hour, it might have been more, since
the train had last started, but now it stopped rather suddenly. Sophia's
father murmured sleepily against the proximity of the stations. He was
reclining in the seat just behind her.

Sophia looked out of her window. She saw no light. By-and-by some men
came up the side of the track with lanterns. She saw by the light they
held that they were officials of the train, and that the bank on which
they walked looked perfectly wild and untrodden. She turned her head
toward her father.

"We are not at any station," she remarked.

"Ay!" He got up with cumbrous haste, as a horse might rise. He, too,
looked out of the window, then round at his women and children, and clad
himself in an immense coat.

"I'll just go out," he whispered, "and see how things are. If there's
anything wrong I'll let you know."

He intended his whisper to be something akin to silence; he intended to
exercise the utmost consideration for those around him; but his long
remark was of the piercing quality that often appertains to whispers,
and, as he turned his back, two of the children woke, and a young girl
in the seat in front of Sophia sat up, her grey eyes dilated with alarm.

"Sophia," she said, with a low sob, "oh, Sophia, is there something
_wrong_?"

"Be quiet!" said Sophia, tartly.

The snoring mother now shut her mouth with a snap. In a twinkling she
was up and lively.

"Has your father