rical company were loud in their lamentations for certain reserved
corridor carriages which had not arrived, while a patient band of
Sunday-school teachers was struggling to keep together a large party of
slum children bound for a sea-side camp.

The noise was almost unbearable. The ceaseless whistling of the engines,
the shouts of the porters, the banging of carriage doors, the eager
inquiries of countless perplexed passengers, made a combination
calculated to give a headache to the owner of the stoutest nerves, and
to drive timid travellers to distraction. All the world seemed off for
its holiday, and the bustle and confusion of its departure was nearly
enough to make some sober-minded parents wish they had stayed at home.

Leaning up against the bookstall in a corner out of reach of the stream
of traffic, clutching a basket in one hand and a hold-all full of wraps
and umbrellas in the other, stood a small girl of about ten or eleven
years of age, her gaze fixed anxiously upon the great clock on the
platform opposite. She was a pretty child, with a sweet, thoughtful
little face, clear gray eyes, and straight fair hair, which fell over
her shoulders without the least attempt at wave or curl. She was very
simply and plainly dressed--her sailor suit had been many times to the
laundry, the straw hat was decidedly sunburnt, and her boots had
evidently seen good service; but there was about her an indescribable
air of refinement and good breeding--that intangible something which
stamps those trained from their babyhood in gentle ways--which set her
apart at once from the crowds of cheap trippers that thronged the
station. From the eager glances she cast up and down the platform she
appeared to be waiting for somebody, and she tried to beguile the time
by watching the surging mass of tourists who hurried past her in a
ceaseless stream. She had listened while the circus manager button-holed
the superintendent and excitedly proclaimed his woes; she had held her
breath with interest when the slum babies, with their buns and
brown-paper parcels, were successfully bundled into the compartments
reserved for them, and had craned her neck to catch a last glimpse as
they steamed slowly out of the station, their small faces filling the
windows like groups of cherubs, and their shrill little voices
over-topping all the other noise and din as they joined lustily in the
chorus of a hymn. She had witnessed the struggles of several family