nductor, standing again by
Mary.

"Yes, she did," replied Mary, smiling upon the child's head as she
smoothed its golden curls; "she'll talk about it to-morrow."

The conductor lingered a moment, wanting to put his own hand there, but
did not venture, perhaps because of the person sitting on the next seat
behind, who looked at him rather steadily until he began to move away.

This was a man of slender, commanding figure and advanced years. Beside
him, next the window, sat a decidedly aristocratic woman, evidently his
wife. She, too, was of fine stature, and so, without leaning forward
from the back of her seat, or unfolding her arms, she could make kind
eyes to Alice, as the child with growing frequency stole glances, at
first over her own little shoulder, and later over her mother's, facing
backward and kneeling on the cushion. At length a cooky passed between
them in dead silence, and the child turned and gazed mutely in her
mother's face, with the cooky just in sight.

"It can't hurt her," said the lady, in a sweet voice, to Mary, leaning
forward with her hands in her lap. By the time the sun began to set in
a cool, golden haze across some wide stretches of rolling fallow, a
conversation had sprung up, and the child was in the lady's lap, her
little hand against the silken bosom, playing with a costly watch.

The talk began about the care of Alice, passed to the diet, and then
to the government, of children, all in a light way, a similarity of
convictions pleasing the two ladies more and more as they found it run
further and further. Both talked, but the strange lady sustained the
conversation, although it was plainly both a pastime and a comfort to
Mary. Whenever it threatened to flag the handsome stranger persisted in
reviving it.

Her husband only listened and smiled, and with one finger made every now
and then a soft, slow pass at Alice, who each time shrank as slowly and
softly back into his wife's fine arm. Presently, however, Mary raised
her eyebrows a little and smiled, to see her sitting quietly in the
gentleman's lap; and as she turned away and rested her elbow on the
window-sill and her cheek on her hand in a manner that betrayed
weariness, and looked out upon the ever-turning landscape, he murmured
to his wife, "I haven't a doubt in my mind," and nodded significantly at
the preoccupied little shape in his arms. His manner with the child was
imperceptibly adroit, and very soon her prattle began to be