the vacant seat next the window.

"I can't set there myself, on account of the cold coming in the cracks
so," she wheezed apologetically. "But young people don't feel draughts,
and anyway, you can put your muff up between you and it if you do."

"Mary has a travelling companion after her own heart," laughed Joyce to
Betty, as they watched the old lady's bonnet bobbing an energetic
accompaniment to her remarks. "She's always picking up acquaintances on
the train. She can get more enjoyment out of a day's railroad journey
than some people get in a trip around the world."

"It is the same way at school," answered Betty. "You have no idea how
popular she is, just because she is interested in everybody in that
sweet friendly way."

They went on to talk of other things, so absorbed in their own
conversation that they thought no more about Mary's. So they did not see
that presently she turned away from her garrulous companion, and,
wrapped in her own thoughts, sat gazing at the flying landscape. It was
not at the snowy fields she was smiling with that happy light in her
eyes, nor at the gleaming river. She was only dimly conscious of them
and had forgotten entirely that it was the famous Hudson whose
shore-line they were following. For once she was finding her own
thoughts more interesting than the conversation of an unexplored
stranger, although the old lady had taken her generously into her
confidence during the first quarter of an hour. Indeed, it was one of
those very confidences which had sent Mary off into her revery.

"I tell Silas that no one ever does keep Christmas just right till they
get to be grand-parents like us, and have the children bringing _their_
children home to hang up their stockings in the old chimney corner.
'Peared like, that first Christmas that Silas and me spent together in
our own house couldn't be happier, but it didn't hold a candle to them
that came afterwards, when there was little Si and Emmy and Joe to buy
toys for. Silas says we get a triple extract out of the day now, because
we not only have _our_ enjoyment of it, but what we get watching our
children enjoy watching _their_ children's fun."

She reached forward and with some difficulty extracted a toy from the
covered basket on the floor at her feet, a wooden monkey on a stick.
"I'm just looking forward to seeing Pa's face when he drops that into
Joe's baby's little sock."

Her own kindly old face was a study, as she slid the grot