e could only manage to lift up one side of the roof he would find the
animals "two by two," together with the cylindrical Noah and the rest
of his family. There was no one in sight but the station-master, who
called out from the ticket office:

"Did you want to go to the village? The 'bus won't be down till the
next train: but maybe you can ride up on the ice wagon."

"Thanks," the stranger replied. "I think I'll wait for the 'bus, if
it's not too long."

"Twenty minutes or so, if Sam don't have to collect the passengers
goin' West, and wait for a lot o' women that forget their handbags and
have to get out and go back after 'em."

The new arrival was good to look at--a handsome, well-built fellow of
about twenty-five, dressed in a gray suit which was non-committal as
to his profession, with a clean-shaven face which bore the
unmistakable stamp of good breeding and unlimited good-nature. He
tilted his suit-case on end and sat down on it; then he filled his
briar pipe, crossed his legs, and looked about to take stock of the
situation. He gazed about curiously; but there was nothing of any
special interest in sight, except, painfully conspicuous on the face
of a grass terrace, the name of the village picked out in large
letters composed of oyster-shells and the bottoms of protruding beer
bottles stuck in the ground. The stranger found himself wondering
where a sufficient number of bottles could be found to complete such
an elaborate pattern. The only other marked feature of the landscape
in the way of artistic decoration was the corrugated base of an old
stove, painted white, which served as a flower vase. From this grew a
huge bunch of scarlet geraniums, staring defiantly, and seeming fairly
to sizzle in the hot, vibrant atmosphere, which was as still as the
calm of a moon-lit night.

As the man on the suit-case gazed about him at the general air of
dilapidation and neglect characteristic of a country town on the down
grade, and recalled the congenial life of the city which he had left,
with all its busy competition, with all its absorbing activities, the
companionship of the men he loved, and the restful, inspiring intimacy
with a certain young woman, he felt, for the moment, a pang of
homesickness. If the station were a sample of the village itself, then
life in such a place must be deadening to every finer sensibility and
ambition; it must throw a man back on himself and make him morbid.

The momentary depressio