leen.

"Pleasant!" said he. "Cott! I suppose you will ask me to go outside
next! But people who travel in a coach should know the law of a coach. I
don't interfere with your window; you have no business to interfere with
mine."

"Sir, I did not speak," said Mr. Digby, meekly.

"But Miss here did."

"Ah, sir!" said Helen, plaintively, "if you knew how Papa suffers!" And
her hand again moved towards the obnoxious window.

"No, my dear; the gentleman is in his right," said Mr. Digby; and,
bowing with his wonted suavity, he added, "Excuse her, sir. She thinks a
great deal too much of me."

The passenger said nothing, and Helen nestled closer to her father, and
strove to screen him from the air.

The passenger moved uneasily. "Well," said he, with a sort of snort,
"air is air, and right is right: but here goes--" and he hastily drew up
the window.

Helen turned her face full towards the passenger with a grateful
expression, visible even in the dim light.

"You are very kind, sir," said poor Mr. Digby; "I am ashamed to--"
his cough choked the rest of the sentence. The passenger, who was a
plethoric, sanguineous man, felt as if he were stifling. But he took off
his wrappers, and resigned the oxygen like a hero.

Presently he drew nearer to the sufferer, and laid hand on his wrist.

"You are feverish, I fear. I am a medical man. St!--one--two. Cott! you
should not travel; you are not fit for it!"

Mr. Digby shook his head; he was too feeble to reply.

The passenger thrust his hand into his coat-pocket, and drew out what
seemed a cigar-case, but what, in fact, was a leathern repertory,
containing a variety of minute phials.

From one of these phials he extracted two tiny globules. "There," said
he, "open your mouth, put those on the tip of your tongue. They will
lower the pulse, check the fever. Be better presently, but should not
travel, want rest; you should be in bed. Aconite! Henbane! hum! Your
papa is of fair complexion,--a timid character, I should say;--a horror
of work, perhaps. Eh, child?"

"Sir!" faltered Helen, astonished and alarmed. Was the man a conjuror?

"A case for phosphor!" cried the passenger: "that fool Browne would have
said arsenic. Don't be persuaded to take arsenic!"

"Arsenic, sir!" echoed the mild Digby. "No: however unfortunate a man
may be, I think, sir, that suicide is--tempting, perhaps, but highly
criminal."

"Suicide," said the passenger, tranquilly,--"suicide is my hobby!