immediately, both of you; save room enough for a mother with two babies,
and man carrying a basket of fish, and an old woman with five pieces of
hand-luggage and a dog; meanwhile I will exchange the tickets."

So saying, she disappeared rapidly among the throng of passengers,
guards, porters, newspaper boys, golfers with bags of clubs, young
ladies with bicycles, and old ladies with tin hat-boxes.

"What decision, what swiftness of judgment, what courage and energy!"
murmured Salemina. "Isn't she wonderfully improved since that unexpected
turning of the Worm?"

Francesca rejoined us just as the guard was about to lock us in, and
flung herself down, quite breathless from her unusual exertion.

"Well, we are travelling third for once, and the money is saved, or
at least it is ready to spend again at the first opportunity. The man
didn't wish to exchange the tickets at all. He says it is never done. I
told him they were bought by a very inexperienced American lady (that is
you, Salemina) who knew almost nothing of the distinctions between first
and third class, and naturally took the best, believing it to be none
too good for a citizen of the greatest republic on the face of the
earth. He said the tickets had been stamped on. I said so should I be
if I returned without exchanging them. He was a very dense person, and
didn't see my joke at all, but then, it is true, there were thirteen men
in line behind me, with the train starting in three minutes, and there
is nothing so debilitating to a naturally weak sense of humour as
selling tickets behind a grating, so I am not really vexed with him.
There! we are quite comfortable, pending the arrival of the babies, the
dog, and the fish, and certainly no vendor of periodic literature will
dare approach us while we keep these books in evidence."

She had Laurence Hutton's Literary Landmarks and Royal Edinburgh, by
Mrs. Oliphant; I had Lord Cockburn's Memorials of his Time; and
somebody had given Salemina, at the moment of leaving London, a work on
'Scotias's darling seat,' in three huge volumes. When all this printed
matter was heaped on the top of Salemina's hold-all on the platform, the
guard had asked, "Do you belong to these books, ma'am?"

"We may consider ourselves injured in going from London to Edinburgh in
a third-class carriage in eight or ten hours, but listen to this," said
Salemina, who had opened one of her large volumes at random when the
train started.

"'Th