rm being thrown up before the
whole train had passed under it, made me think something was wrong, so
I reversed the engine and came back.'

"It was Julia, then, and not I, who had saved the express!

"On reaching the operating room I found the conductor of the passenger
special waiting. He had heard of the forgotten order, and said, 'That
is the closest call I have had for years. We should have met about the
trestle bridge over the ravine. It would have been a terrible
pitch-in, as I have eight cars of excursionists.'

"A few moments later both trains had departed, and the only sounds to
be heard were the ticking of the busy instrument and the monotonous
hum of the wires. I looked at the clock. It was 9.09--just nine
minutes since the regular express had steamed into the station. It
seemed impossible to me that so much could have happened in so short a
time. Had each minute been a week it could not have seemed longer."

George paused as though his story was done. "And Julia?" I asked,
laying my hand lightly on his knee. Without replying, he drew out of
his pocket an old frayed pocket-book, took out of it a slip of faded
newspaper, and silently handed it to me. The words printed on it were
very few; simply these: "Died March 8th, 1874, of rapid consumption,
Julia Waine, aged twenty years and five months."

As I raised my head and looked at him, he said as he looked out of the
low window, "The cold she took that fearful night killed her."

* * * * *

A Memorable Dinner.

As I often have wondered whether a Christmas dinner ever was so
fearfully and wonderfully constructed, and under such novel
circumstances, as the one to which I sat down on Christmas Day, 1879,
I have decided to relate--in the truthful, unvarnished style that one
always looks for in the old railway man--the incidents in which I was
fortunate enough to participate on that occasion.

That year, I was Assistant-Superintendent of the St. ---- R.R., and
was returning on Christmas eve from the annual inspection of the line,
in company with the General Manager of the road, in the private car
"St. Paul," when one of the worst blizzards I ever experienced, even
in that prairie country, burst upon us, and in less than an hour, had
buried the track so deeply that further progress was impossible.

It was about midnight when the engine, fully five miles distant from a
human habitation, and two hundred miles from our ho