look cross again!" as he did in the morning--anything but that
expression of grieved and compassionate disapproval with which he sat,
talking so earnestly to me, for the last few moments in that dark car. I
thought he was cruel. He was trying to make me _think_ and I was trying
so hard _not_ to think! I felt a childish desire to scream out. Then,
when the signal for starting rang, and John took my hand an instant, in
parting, looking down at me with his kind, familiar eyes, the impulse
swept up strong within me to beg him to take me out of that dreadful car
and take me back home, and I would be good, oh, so good, and "prosy,"
yes, and "humdrum," and never ask to go on any more missions to forlorn
pieces of land sticking out into the water.

So there must have been a wild extravagance in the airy recklessness of
tone with which I bade John "good-bye." A sense of utter helplessness
came over me as he turned and went out.

I observed, particularly, but two passengers in the car. One was a man,
very much bandaged as to his head, who sat gazing into the coal-stove,
which occupied the centre of the car, with weakly meditative, burnt-out
eyes. The other was a girl, occupying the seat directly in front of me.
She might have been nine years old, but she had a singularly faded and
mature countenance. As the train started, she turned to me with some
excitement:--

"There!" said she, pointing towards the window; "your beau's walking
off! He's walking fast! He ain't looking back!"

"Thank you," said I, in a low, expressionless tone, not intended as an
inducement to further conversation.

This girl had a parcel of confectionery, the contents of which she
occasionally took out, and ranged in a row on the window ledge, selecting
therefrom the smallest and least inviting fragment, and having eaten it
with the hasty air of one who treats herself under protest to the
luscious prerogatives of childhood, put the rest back in the paper-bag,
carefully replacing the string every time. She selected and handed to me
the very largest specimen in her collection, which I had the
gracelessness to refuse, though without show of disgust. Afterwards she
asked if she might come and sit in the seat with me. I thought she was
very disagreeable. Besides, I was so miserable I wanted to commune apart
with my own loneliness. However, I made room for her.

She proceeded to confide to me all of her past history. She was returning
home from a visit to her