nd
again pick up a little for an indifferent purpose. The gentleman for
Nowhere must become still better known at the Junction. He shall
continue to explore it, until he attaches something that he has seen,
heard, or found out, at the head of each of the seven roads, to the road
itself. And so his choice of a road shall be determined by his choice
among his discoveries."

Her hands still busy, she again glanced at the prospect, as if it
comprehended something that had not been in it before, and laughed as if
it yielded her new pleasure.

"But I must not forget," said Barbox Brothers, "(having got so far) to
ask a favour. I want your help in this expedient of mine. I want to
bring you what I pick up at the heads of the seven roads that you lie
here looking out at, and to compare notes with you about it. May I?
They say two heads are better than one. I should say myself that
probably depends upon the heads concerned. But I am quite sure, though
we are so newly acquainted, that your head and your father's have found
out better things, Phoebe, than ever mine of itself discovered."

She gave him her sympathetic right hand, in perfect rapture with his
proposal, and eagerly and gratefully thanked him.

"That's well!" said Barbox Brothers. "Again I must not forget (having
got so far) to ask a favour. Will you shut your eyes?"

Laughing playfully at the strange nature of the request, she did so.

"Keep them shut," said Barbox Brothers, going softly to the door, and
coming back. "You are on your honour, mind, not to open your eyes until
I tell you that you may?"

"Yes! On my honour."

"Good. May I take your lace-pillow from you for a minute?"

Still laughing and wondering, she removed her hands from it, and he put
it aside.

"Tell me. Did you see the puffs of smoke and steam made by the morning
fast-train yesterday on road number seven from here?"

"Behind the elm-trees and the spire?"

"That's the road," said Barbox Brothers, directing his eyes towards it.

"Yes. I watched them melt away."

"Anything unusual in what they expressed?"

"No!" she answered merrily.

"Not complimentary to me, for I was in that train. I went--don't open
your eyes--to fetch you this, from the great ingenious town. It is not
half so large as your lace-pillow, and lies easily and lightly in its
place. These little keys are like the keys of a miniature piano, and you
supply the air required with your left hand. May y