o the
invisible ear of the girl.

"You haven't told me why you cried," he reminded her.

She waved her hand toward the wayside village, the lamps of which shone
sorrowfully through the snow.

"Upper Asquewan Falls," she said, "isn't it reason enough?"

Billy Magee looked; saw a row of gloomy buildings that seemed to list as
the wind blew, a blurred sign "Liquors and Cigars," a street that
staggered away into the dark like a man who had lingered too long at the
emporium back of the sign.

"Are you doomed to stay here long?" he asked.

"Come on, Mary," cried a deep voice from the cab. "Get in and shut the
door. I'm freezing."

"It all depends," said the girl. "Thank you for being so kind and--good
night."

The door closed with a muffled bang, the cab creaked wearily away, and
Mr. Magee turned back to the dim waiting-room.

"Well, what was she crying for?" inquired the ticket agent, when Mr.
Magee stood again at his cell window.

"She didn't think much of your town," responded Magee; "she intimated
that it made her heavy of heart."

"H'm--it ain't much of a place," admitted the man, "though it ain't the
general rule with visitors to burst into tears at sight of it. Yes,
Upper Asquewan is slow, and no mistake. It gets on my nerves sometimes.
Nothing to do but work, work, work, and then lay down and wait for
to-morrow. I used to think maybe some day they'd transfer me down to
Hooperstown--there's moving pictures and such goings-on down there. But
the railroad never notices you--unless you go wrong. Yes, sir, sometimes
I want to clear out of this town myself."

"A natural wanderlust," sympathized Mr. Magee. "You said something just
now about Baldpate Inn--"

"Yes, it's a little more lively in summer, when that's open," answered
the agent; "we get a lot of complaints about trunks not coming, from
pretty swell people, too. It sort of cheers things." His eye roamed with
interest over Mr. Magee's New York attire. "But Baldpate Inn is shut up
tight now. This is nothing but an annex to a graveyard in winter. You
wasn't thinking of stopping off here, was you?"

"Well--I want to see a man named Elijah Quimby," Mr. Magee replied. "Do
you know him?"

"Of course," said the yearner for pastures new, "he's caretaker of the
inn. His house is about a mile out, on the old Miller Road that leads up
Baldpate. Come outside and I'll tell you how to get there."

The two men went out into the whirling snow, and the agent waved