d at Peak's. The information she received was various, but the
weight of it was discouraging, and some of the passengers urged her to
get off without delay, before the train should start. The poor woman
got off, and pretty soon came back again, sent by the conductor; but her
mind was not settled, for she repeated her questions to every person
who passed her seat, and their answers still more discomposed her. "Sit
perfectly still," said the conductor, when he came by. "You must get
out and wait for a way train," said the passengers, who knew. In this
confusion, the train moved off, just as the old lady had about made
up her mind to quit the car, when her distraction was completed by the
discovery that her hair trunk was not on board. She saw it standing on
the open platform, as we passed, and after one look of terror, and a
dash at the window, she subsided into her seat, grasping her bandbox,
with a vacant look of utter despair. Fate now seemed to have done its
worst, and she was resigned to it. I am sure it was no mere curiosity,
but a desire to be of service, that led me to approach her and say,
"Madam, where are you going?"

"The Lord only knows," was the utterly candid response; but then,
forgetting everything in her last misfortune and impelled to a burst of
confidence, she began to tell me her troubles. She informed me that
her youngest daughter was about to be married, and that all her
wedding-clothes and all her summer clothes were in that trunk; and as
she said this she gave a glance out of the window as if she hoped it
might be following her. What would become of them all now, all brand
new, she did n't know, nor what would become of her or her daughter. And
then she told me, article by article and piece by piece, all that that
trunk contained, the very names of which had an unfamiliar sound in a
railway-car, and how many sets and pairs there were of each. It seemed
to be a relief to the old lady to make public this catalogue which
filled all her mind; and there was a pathos in the revelation that
I cannot convey in words. And though I am compelled, by way of
illustration, to give this incident, no bribery or torture shall ever
extract from me a statement of the contents of that hair trunk.

We were now passing Nahant, and we should have seen Longfellow's cottage
and the waves beating on the rocks before it, if we had been near
enough. As it was, we could only faintly distinguish the headland and
note the whit