et into that clean, hard-seated, ill-upholstered third-class carriage
immediately, both of you; save room enough for a mother with two
babies, a man carrying a basket of fish, and an old woman with five
pieces of hand-luggage and a dog; meanwhile I will exchange the
tickets."

So saying, she disappeared rapidly among the throng of passengers,
guards, porters, newspaper boys, golfers with bags of clubs, young
ladies with bicycles, and old ladies with tin hat-boxes.

"What decision, what swiftness of judgment, what courage and energy!"
murmured Salemina. "Isn't she wonderfully improved since that
unexpected turning of the Worm?"

Francesca rejoined us just as the guard was about to lock us in, and
flung herself down, quite breathless from her unusual exertion.

"Well, we are traveling third for once, and the money is saved, or at
least it is ready to spend again at the first opportunity. The man
didn't wish to exchange the tickets at all. He says it is never done.
I told him they were bought by a very inexperienced American lady
(that is you, Salemina) who knew almost nothing of the distinctions
between first and third class, and naturally took the best, believing
it to be none too good for a citizen of the greatest republic on the
face of the earth. He said the tickets had been stamped on. I said so
should I be if I returned without exchanging them. He was a very dense
person, and didn't see my joke at all, but then, it is true, there
were thirteen men in line behind me, with the train starting in three
minutes, and there is nothing so debilitating to a naturally weak
sense of humor as selling tickets behind a grating, so I am not really
vexed with him. There! we are quite comfortable, pending the arrival
of the babies, the dog, and the fish, and certainly no vender of
periodic literature will dare approach us while we keep these books in
evidence."

She had Laurence Hutton's "Literary Landmarks" and "Royal Edinburgh,"
by Mrs. Oliphant; I had Lord Cockburn's Memorials of his Time; and
somebody had given Salemina, at the moment of leaving London, a work
on "Scotia's darling seat," in three huge volumes. When all this
printed matter was heaped on the top of Salemina's hold-all on the
platform, the guard had asked, "Do you belong to these books, mam?"

"We may consider ourselves injured in going from London to Edinburgh
in a third-class carriage in eight or ten hours, but listen to this,"
said Salemina, who had opene