ould take so long to go to the
post-office. I am very sorry!"

"Well," he continued, recovering his good humor, notwithstanding
Ester's provoking silence, "what can't be cured must be endured, Miss
Ester; and it isn't as bad as it might be, either. We've only to wait
an hour and a quarter. I've some errands to do, and I'll show you
the city with pleasure; or would you prefer sitting here and looking
around you?"

"I should decidedly prefer not running the chance of missing the next
train," Ester answered very shortly. "So I think it will be wiser to
stay where I am."

In truth Mr. Newton endured the results of his own carelessness with
too much complacency to suit Ester's state of mind; but he took no
notice of her broadly-given hint further than to assure her that she
need give herself no uneasiness on that score; he should certainly be
on time. Then he went off, looking immensely relieved; for Mr. Newton
frankly confessed to himself that he did not know how to take care of
a lady. "If she were a parcel of goods now that one could get stored
or checked, and knew that she would come on all right, why--but a
lady. I'm not used to it. How easily I could have caught that train,
if I hadn't been obliged to run back after her; but, bless me, I
wouldn't have her know that for the world." This he said meditatively
as he walked down South Street.

The New York train had carried away the greater portion of the
throng at the depot, so that Ester and the dozen or twenty people who
occupied the great sitting-room with her, had comparative quiet. The
wearer of the condemned brown silk and blue ribbons was still there,
and awoke Ester's vexation still further by seeming utterly unable to
keep herself quiet; she fluttered from seat to seat, and from window
to window, like an uneasy bird in a cage. Presently she addressed
Ester in a bright little tone: "Doesn't it bore you dreadfully to wait
in a depot?"

"Yes," said Ester, briefly and truthfully, notwithstanding the fact
that she was having her first experience in that boredom.

"Are you going to New York?"

"I hope so," she answered, with energy. "I expected to have been
almost there by this time; but the gentleman who is supposed to be
taking care of me, had to rush off and stay just long enough to miss
the train."

"How annoying!" answered the blue ribbons with a soft laugh. "I missed
it, too, in such a silly way. I just ran around the corner to get some
chocolate drops