with anything," snapped a girl from behind the
counter.

"I'm aren't a monkey. I'm are a boy. Want pie," Elsmere answered
sweetly.

"You can't get pie without money," said the girl.

Elsmere felt in his pocket and produced a quarter. Whatever his
failings, Elsmere had a redeeming trait of forehandedness, and had
always on hand a hoard of articles which might be useful in an hour of
need. The quarter bought respect at once and plenty of pie, also a
sandwich, a tall glass of milk and a big "rubber doughnut."

When he had satisfied his hunger, the traveller returned to the depot,
and, lying comfortably in the shade of a baggage truck, indulged in a
siesta, a sleep so light this time, however, that the rolling back of
the baggage-room door shattered it.

Sitting up, Elsmere watched the baggage-man get a tin trunk and a canvas
telescope ready for shipping. Presently the stub train arrived, stopped,
and while the conductor and the agent were exchanging gossip, Elsmere
got inconspicuously aboard, and stowed himself away in a corner, so
successfully that it was not till the brakeman called "Hampton" that the
conductor discovered him.

Swearing softly and scratching his head in mystification, the conductor
stood in the aisle staring at the ubiquitous babe, when a double cry
arose:

"Elsmere, where in thunder?"

"Hullo, Algy!"

The young assistant, who had accompanied Catherine to the station
for the sake of talking over mutual friends at Dexter, looked up in
surprise as the dignified youth who had impressed her greatly by his
intelligence and earnestness suddenly stooped and lifted a dirty,
tear-and-pie-stained little boy in his arms. Catherine laughed. Elsmere
could not greatly surprise her.

"Miss Adams," she said, "you have shown your interest in the new Winsted
library. Let me introduce you to its mascot."

* * * * *

The morning after the Hampton expedition, Catherine struggled awake from
dreams of book-lined trains, with Miss Adams and Elsmere as engineer and
fireman, to open her eyes gratefully upon the substantial reality of her
own great room in its fresh bareness. At the foot of her big carved bed,
the broad window open to its utmost seemed to bring all out-of-doors
within the room. A squirrel whisked his tail across the sill as he
scurried in and out of the branches of the window-oak where a grosbeak
and a wren chatted sociably. The sunshine through the leafy