coral he could find at Tiffany's as a peaceoffering, and while we remained trotted after his injured daughter wherever she went. Indeed, he was, I might say, omnipresent and devoted to a fault, since Charley Coates and several of his friends stood ready to relieve his overburdened mind of such a responsibility.

All pleasant things come to an end, and my visit was not an exception. It was not what my fancy had painted when papa had proposed my going to New York. Indeed, it was not New York at all; but it had been a "treat" of the first quality, and I had hard work to keep the tears back when I said good-bye to the charming family who had entertained me so delightfully.

As papa had some last business to attend to in New York, it was arranged that we should meet in the waiting-room of the Twentyseventh Street station, whither Charley Coates had promised to take me at the proper time.

On our way over from Brooklyn Charley laid a wager of half a dozen of Jugla's twobuttoned gloves, number five and threequarters, that father would not be there to meet me, which was very impertinent in the

young man (I allow nobody to make game of poor papa's besetting sin but myself), and he lost, as he deserved. Papa was at the station before us, and we arrived just in time to catch him in the act of convoying a frumpy-looking miss out of the waitingroom into the train. It may have been all very well for him to say, by way of excuse for himself, that "all girls look just alike in these days," and that this creature had yellow braids and a blue veil just like mine, which were all he looked for; and that when he asked her where Charley was and if she was ready to get into the cars, and took her bandbox (as if I ever would be guilty of a bandbox!) out of her hand, she had never said a word (which silence he ascribed to "grief at parting with Charley"), but had trotted dutifully after him and her bandbox.

"He ought to have known by the style, even if you'd both been done up in mummycases just alike," muttered Charley Coates, indignantly. "Mr. Winthrop is the greatest man in the United States for a tough law question, and even for melting a jury; but he is no more capable of taking care of such a daughter than, etc., etc., etc. ;" all of which made it necessary for me to be awfully severe

with the youth, so that I got through with the parting far better than I had feared I should.

However, when the train was fairly off, and I found myself seated directly behind the creature with the yellow braids and the bandbox, so that I could not have forgotten my last grievance if I had tried, I cried a little behind my blue veil.

Papa found me out, for a wonder, and dragged out of me my opinion that I was mourning in secret over the fact that I was the unfortunate daughter of an unnatural father who didn't even know his own only child by sight, although there were

people who thought that she wasn't just like everybody else! (sniff, sniff, sniff). Then he pronounced judgment on the case in his most wide-awake and impressive manner, and affirmed that it was not "the nice-looking (such taste!) girl in front" of me, "or the nice-looking boy" I'd left behind me (the idea!), that had thrown me into "this maudlin state," but that I was a "dear little tired-out girl" who had had quite too much gayety and dissipation during the last two or three days for such excitable nerves. And then he told me stories of the good times he had when he was young (and nobody can be more entertaining than my father if he will only keep present-minded) till I forgot my troubles, and we made up" beautifully, and I fell fast asleep on his shoulder and only waked when we stopped at the junction where we were allowed time for refreshments.

The frumpy young woman had left the train long before at some way station; and papa had turned over the back of her seat

so that we could be comfortable, and take out the shawls from the strap to wrap around me as I slept, for it was getting late on cold winter's day.

I was still half asleep, but hurriedly rolled my wraps together, not strapping them, and followed father into the eating-room. The change of air, and a few sips of strong coffee woke me sufficiently to recall that this most confusing of all junctions was the place where we were to change cars for home, and that very possibly our traps, which we had left to keep our seats for us, might already be on their way back to New York, or any other destination than the right one. Father rushed frantically off into the midst of shrieking whistles, jingling bells, shouting porters, and crashing luggage, but soon emerged with the statement that all was right, and finished his oysters complacently.

"Your hand-bag was black, wasn't it, pet?" he asked, with his last spoonful. "No indeed, papa! It was beautiful Russia-leather, and you gave

it to me yourself, last Christ

It's all

"No, no, child! right, as I told you. There was no one in the car we left but a poor little woman in black, and she had chosen to get into your seat and go to sleep there; how she managed to do it so quickly I can't imagine. There must be something soporific in that situation, mustn't there, Fanny? I just picked up the things as quietly as I could, so as not to disturb the poor soul, who looked as if she had cried herself to sleep over tougher sorrows than yours, my girl, and put them on board our train. I have taken a compartment in the drawing. room car this time, as 1 thought you would want to finish your nap. It is well you brought so many wraps (I had no idea they were so heavy till I moved them into

THE CONDUCTOR TO THE RESCUE!

the other car; they must weigh a dozen or fifteen pounds), for it is going to be a fearfully cold night."

Now I have only as definite ideas of weight as girls in general, but father's estimate of the avoirdupois of my black and white plaid, my water-proof cloak, and a fleecy white Nubia struck me as extravagant, and awakened alarming suspicions as to the possible fate of my lovely Russia-leather satchel.

But as we entered the drawing-room car whom should we find in sole possession but Teazie Phillips and her father!

Now Teazie is one of my two "most intimates," and as she had been spending a fortnight in Boston, we had so much to say to each other that I quickly forgot my fears. To be sure I asked papa where my wraps were, soon after the train started, and he ran and peeped into the first compartment, and came back saying, "There they are, all right; but we will stay here with our friends instead of taking a nap. Shall we not?" So we four settled back in our easy-chairs and had the best of gossips,-at least Teazie and I had.

At what time we became actually conscious of the fact that we were not, as we at first supposed ourselves to be, the only occu

pants of that car I cannot say. I remember that the conductor had been back and forth several times, and that latterly he had eyed Teazie and me sharply and with a peculiar expression of countenance which did not seem simple admiration. Papa, too, had remarked to Colonel Phillips, apropos to a stifled wail and intermittent gurgle which came to our ears from the dusky recesses of the car, "We have a baby among us, have we?" and each of us made facetious remarks about its vocal development, as light-hearted people will do who have no responsibility for the young performer.

But at last the conductor, standing at the door of the first compartment, called out : "I beg pardon, but which of the young ladies do these things belong to in here?"

"They are mine, sir," said papa with emphasis, for the conductor's tone had an unpleasant ring.

"Well, why in thunder, then, don't you come and stop your baby's noise!"

At this astounding challenge father "went for that sinful" conductor, who made way for him just in time to save himself from a crushing reprimand, for as he stepped back from the door of the compartment he opened to his wrathful passenger a vision which silenced him. When I saw papa clutching his own unlucky head with both hands I ran to him.

"Papa! papa! what is it?"

What should he do but whirl upon me with the startling cry: "Frances Winthrop, where under the canopy did you borrow this baby from?"

I pushed him aside, and there, surely enough, was a baby wrapped in a black and white plaid, somewhat like mine, and doing its best to protest against its mufflings.

"Father Winthrop! Are THESE the things that you brought from the other car for mine?"

"Merciful powers!" was all his answer, but it was sufficient.

The "borrowed" baby had by this time disentangled itself with its indignant little fists sufficiently to cry at its ease, and I,

who am a desperate lover of babies, caught it up and tried to soothe it with all the arts at my command.

Poor papa clutched his head, and stamped his feet, and execrated himself and his fate generally. Colonel Phillips and Teazie and the conductor stared in blank amazement at the three actors in this pleasing little drama, until it happened to occur to me that they had not the cue: so I proceeded to explain that this was only one of the frequent little entertainments which papa and his besetting sin were wont to get up for the benefit of whomsoever it might concern.

"Help me, Phillips! Think for me!" cried poor papa, his wits utterly demoralized by the horrors of the situation and the shrieks of the chief victim there present. "That poor little woman in black!" he went on; "there she had cried herself to sleep, and I, like an infernal scoundrel, must needs make off with her baby and the rest of her things!"

"Ai! ai!" wailed the little Greek chorus from out my unfamiliar arms in fitting response to papa's remorseful apostrophe. So I left the gentlemen to canvass plans for the relief of the poor mother's agony, and bent all my powers to the care of her vociferous offspring.

Luckily, Teazie was wiser in her generation than I, thanks to an overflowing nursery at home, and suggested that the child was hungry; and that, perhaps, since papa was in the habit of stealing babies, he might have been provident enough to bring away proper nourishment also.

Accordingly, while I trotted and 'sh-'sh'shed and dandled papa's elephant up and down the whizzing car, Teazie went on a foraging expedition and soon brought back a rusty old black bag (which looked even less like my Russia-leather beauty than that yellow-haired creature like me), and out of it she pulled, surely enough, a bottle of milk!

I snatched it, and would have popped it at once into the baby's mouth, which was accommodatingly open; but Teazie swooped upon it with all the airs of a mother in Israel, exclaiming :

"What a little goosie! It must be warmed, of course."

It actually was half-frozen, and what we should have done in this dilemma without the impertinent conductor I don't know.

He was now transformed into the most gracious, fatherly creature imaginable. He He patted father soothingly on the back; he devised ways and means with Colonel Phil

lips; he chirruped to the baby; he complimented me on my not very marked success as nurse-maid; and scarcely had Teazie proclaimed the necessity of heating baby's supper than he rushed to the disused watertank at the other end of the car, and after a gallant struggle with the chained cup tore it off, returned triumphant, and stood polishing away its dust and rust with his scented pocket-handkerchief, while we looked on admiring. ed on admiring. Nor did he stop here. He himself, with his own bediamonded fingers, poured the milk into the cup and held it over the hot stove, to the great detriment of his comfort and complexion, until Mother Teazie expressed herself satisfied with its temperature (that of baby's milk-not the conductor's color).

If you do not think that this was very much to do, then all I have to say is, just examine the next drawing-room car conductor you chance to see, and imagine his serene elegance toasting before the fire in an uncomfortable and even ludicrous attitude, all in a howling baby's behalf, and perhaps you will change your mind.

Moral: Men are sometimes better than they look.

But let us return to our little mouton. As the baby had been too much occupied with its own vocal exercises to criticise our culinary operations, its appetite was not in the least affected by the dust and the rust and the odorous pocket-handkerchief, and the way that milk disappeared was astonishing to us ignorant outsiders. I indeed, remembering vaguely stories which I had heard of the fatal results of over-feeding, demurred at giving the insatiate atom its will with the bottle, but Teazie (the airs that child put on, for she was a year younger than I, were almost insufferable !) laughed at me, and informed the conductor authoritatively that she might find it necessary to have him stop the train before we reached A-., in order to replenish nursery-supplies, to which he listened meekly submissive to her will.

However, although we really stopped at the next station (have I said that ours was the express train, which did not usually stop between the junction and our destination, A-.?), it was not for milk, but to set down poor papa. The train conductor had been called into council, and although it took him some time to understand that father was neither a wicked kidnapper nor a madman, but only an impetuous absentminded gentleman of the best intentions, he at last agreed with Colonel Phillips and