on the window, and, leaning towards the passenger,
whispered softly.

"Eh!" said the passenger, "draw up the windows? You have got your own
window; this is mine. Oxygen, young lady," he added solemnly, "oxygen is
the breath of life. Cott, child!" he continued, with suppressed choler,
and a Welsh pronunciation, "Cott! let us breathe and live."

Helen was frightened, and recoiled.

Her father, who had not heard, or had not heeded, this colloquy,
retreated into the corner, put up the collar of his coat, and coughed
again.

"It is cold, my dear," said he languidly to Helen.

The passenger caught the word, and replied indignantly, but as if
soliloquizing--

"Cold--ugh! I do believe the English are the stuffiest people! Look at
their four-post beds?--all the curtains drawn, shutters closed, board
before the chimney--not a house with a ventilator! Cold--ugh!"

The window next Mr. Digby did not fit well into its frame.

"There is a sad draught," said the invalid.

Helen instantly occupied herself in stopping up the chinks of the window
with her handkerchief. Mr. Digby glanced ruefully at the other window.
The look, which was very eloquent, aroused yet more the traveller's
spleen.

"Pleasant!" said he. "Cott! I suppose you will ask me to go outside
next! But people who travel in a coach should know the law of a coach. I
don't interfere with your window; you have no business to interfere with
mine."

"Sir, I did not speak," said Mr. Digby meekly.

"But Miss here did."

"Ah, sir!" said Helen plaintively, "if you knew how papa suffers!" And
her hand again moved towards the obnoxious window.

"No, my dear: the gentleman is in his right," said Mr. Digby; and,
bowing with his wonted suavity, he added, "Excuse her, sir. She thinks a
great deal too much of me."

The passenger said nothing, and Helen nestled closer to her father, and
strove to screen him from the air.

The passenger moved uneasily. "Well," said he, with a sort of snort,
"air is air, and right is right: but here goes"--and he hastily drew up
the window.

Helen turned her face full towards the passenger with a grateful
expression, visible even in the dim light.

"You are very kind, sir," said poor Mr. Digby; "I am ashamed to"--his
cough choked the rest of the sentence.

The passenger, who was a plethoric, sanguineous man, felt as if he were
stifling. But he took off his wrappers, and resigned the oxygen like a
hero.

Presently he drew nearer to