ut the muscles of his face twitched violently.

"Waal, no, miss," said he; "we don't run no reg'lar express up to
Wallencamp; might be a very healthy oc'pation, but not as lukertive as
some, I reckon--not as lukertive as pickin' 'tater-bugs: that's what they
do, mostly, down thar'. Fact is, miss," he concluded, with considerable
gravity; "we don't vary often go down to Wallencamp unless we're obliged
to."

On my proposing to make it lucrative, he immediately called, in a loud
voice, to one of the playful occupants of the _depot_:

"Hi, thar!' 'Rasmus! 'Rasmus! Here's a lady wants to be conveyed down to
Wallencamp; you run home and tackle, now! You be lively, now!"

'Rasmus was lively. In a very few moments something of an unusual and
ghostly appearance--so much only I could discover of what afterwards
became a very familiar sort of vehicle--was waiting for me alongside the
platform. The only means of getting into it was through an opening
directly in front. Towards this I was encouraged to climb over the
thills, but met with an obstacle, in the form of my trunk, which seemed
effectually to block up the entrance.

"Thar', now! I told ye so," exclaimed one of the bystanders, a large
number of whom had mysteriously gathered about the scene. "You'd orter
got _her_ in first."

A disconsolate silence prevailed. The trunk had been elevated to its
present position through the most painful exertions.

"Perhaps I can climb over it," I said, and bravely made the attempt.

No one knew, in the voiceless darkness, of the suddenly helpless and
collapsed condition in which I landed on the other side. I groped about
for a seat, and finally succeeded in finding one at the extreme rear of
the vehicle.

'Rasmus drove. He was situated somewhere, somehow--I could not tell where
nor how--in the realm of vacancy on the other side of the trunk; I only
know that he seemed a long way off. Under these circumstances
conversation was rendered extremely difficult. I learned that Mr.
Philander Keeler was away at sea; that Mrs. Philander Keeler lived at the
_Ark_, with Cap'n and Grandma Keeler, and the two little Keelers.

'Rasmus was the unmistakable son of his father.

"And it ain't no _got-up_ ark, neither!" he yelled at me, in a tone which
pierced through the distance and the darkness, and every intervening
obstacle. "It's the reg'lar old _Ark_! It's what Noer, and the elephant,
and them fellows come over in!"

I did not wonder, as we