gingham dress and a shawl a hundred years old, and she'll think she's
dressed up! Perhaps she won't have any fine dresses in a week or so, eh?'"
10. The stranger then strode down the passageway again, and getting in a
corner where he seemed to suppose that he was out of sight, went through
the strangest pantomime,--laughing putting his mouth into the drollest
shapes, and swinging himself back and forth in the limited space.

11. As the train was going into the depot, I placed myself on the platform
of the car in front of the one in which I had been riding, and opposite
the stranger, who, with a portmanteau in each hand, was standing on the
lowest step, ready to jump to the ground. I looked from his face to the
faces of the people before us, but saw no sign of recognition. Suddenly he
cried, "There they are!"

12. Then he laughed outright, but in a hysterical way, as he looked over
the crowd in front of him. I followed his eye and saw, some distance back,
as if crowded out by the well-dressed and elbowing throng, a little woman
in a faded dress and a well-worn hat, with a face almost painful in its
intense but hopeful expression, glancing rapidly from window to window as
the coaches passed by.

13. She had not seen the stranger, but a moment after she caught his eye.
In another instant he had jumped to the platform with his two
portmanteaus, and, pushing his way through the crowd, he rushed towards
the place where she was standing. I think I never saw a face assume so
many different expressions in so short a time as did that of the little
woman while her husband was on his way to meet her.

14. She was not pretty,--on the contrary, she was very plain-looking; but
somehow I felt a big lump rise in my throat as I watched her. She was
trying to laugh, but, God bless her, how completely she failed in the
attempt! Her mouth got into the position to laugh, but it never moved
after that, save to draw down at the corners and quiver, while her eyes
blinked so fast that I suspect she only caught occasional glimpses of the
broad-shouldered fellow who elbowed his way so rapidly toward her.

15. As he drew close, and dropped the portmanteaus, she turned to one
side, and covered her face with her hands; and thus she was when the
strong man gathered her up in his arms as if she were a child, and held
her sobbing to his breast.

16. There were enough staring at them, heaven knows; so I turned my eyes
away a moment, and then I saw