he window which she tiptoed to reach with her
eager eyes.
"I guess it's all of that," the man consented, sadly.
"I presume we sha'n't ever go in one," she suggested.
"Not likely," he owned, in the same discouraged tone.
They were both silent for a time. Then the woman said, with a deep,
hopeless aspiration, "Dear! I wish I could see inside one, once!"
The man said nothing, and if he shared her bold ambition he made no
sign.
The eavesdropper faltered near their kind backs, wishing for something
more from them which should give their souls away, but they remained
silently standing there, and he did not somehow feel authorized to make
them reflect that, if the car was lighted up, it must be open, and that
the friendly porter somewhere within would not mind letting them look
through it under his eye. Perhaps they did reflect, and the woman was
trying to embolden the man to the hardy venture. In the end they did not
attempt it, but they turned away with another sigh from the woman which
found its echo in the eavesdropper's heart. Doubtless if they had
penetrated that splendid interior without having paid for seats, it
would, in some fine, mystical sort, have pauperized them; it would have
corrupted them; they would have wished after that always to travel in
such cars, when clearly they could not afford it; very possibly it might
have led to their moral if not financial ruin. So he tried to still his
bosom's ache, but he could never quite forget that gentle pair with
their unrequited longing, and the other day they came almost the first
thing into his mind when he read that a great German steamship company
had some thoughts of putting on a train of Pullman cars from the port of
arrival to the mercantile metropolis which was the real end of their
ships' voyages. He thought, whimsically, perversely, how little
difference it would make to that pair, how little to those measureless
most whose journeys shall end in heaven, where Pullman passengers, or
even passengers by the ordinary European first-class cars, may be only
too glad to meet them. He gave a looser rein to his thoughts and
considered how very little the ordinary necessities of life, such as
Pullman cars and taxicabs and electric radiators and non-storage
chickens and unsalted butter concern the great mass of the saints, who
would find them the rarest luxuries, and could hardly be imagined
coveting them; and then from this wild revery he fell to asking himse
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