after the vacancy
underneath his blue blouse had been sufficiently filled to dispose him
to conversation.

"In a big red coach, dear, with six fine horses to draw us," answered
Mrs. Lloyd.

"Oh, mother, won't that be splendid? And may I sit up with the driver?"

"Perhaps you may, for a little while, anyway, if he will let you."

"Hooray!" cried Bert, clapping his hands with delight; "I'm sure the
driver will let me, if you'll only ask him. You will, won't you,
mother?"

"Yes, I will, after we get out of the town. But you must wait until I
think it's the right time to ask him."

"I'll wait, mother, but don't you forget."

Forget! There was much likelihood of Mrs. Lloyd forgetting with this
lively young monkey before her as a constant reminder.

They had just finished dinner, when, with clatter of hoofs, rattle of
springs, and crush of gravel under the heavy wheels, the great Concord
coach drew up before the hotel door in dashing style.

Bert was one of the first to greet it. He did not even wait to put on
his hat, and his mother, following with it, found him in the forefront
of the crowd that always gathers about the mail coach in a country town,
gazing up at the driver, who sat in superb dignity upon his lofty seat,
as though he had never beheld so exalted a being in his life before.

There was something so impassive, so indifferent to his surroundings,
about this big, bronzed, black-moustached, and broad-hatted driver, that
poor Bert's heart sank within him. He felt perfectly sure that _he_
could never in the world muster up sufficient courage to beg for the
privilege of a seat beside so impressive a potentate, and he doubted if
his mother could, either.

Among the passengers Bert was glad to see the gentleman who had
befriended him on the train, and when this individual, after having the
audacity to hail the driver familiarly with, "Good-morning, Jack; looks
as if we were going to have a pleasant trip down," sprang up on the
wheel, and thence to the vacant place beside Jack Davis, just as though
it belonged to him of right, a ray of hope stole into Bert's heart. If
his friend of the train, whose name, by the way, he told Bert, was Mr.
Miller, was on such good terms with the driver, perhaps he would ask him
to let a little boy sit up in front for a while.

Taking much comfort from this thought, Bert, at a call from his mother,
who was already seated, climbed up into the coach, and being allowed the
corn