ongside and then
behind, became speedily but `a dot in the distance,' to use Bob's words
over again; the snugly secluded seats of the county gentry, the
scattered villages and sparse red-roofed farmhouses, with their outposts
of hayricks and herds of cattle and other stock, that one moment
appeared and the next disappeared from view behind masses of foliage,
all dancing a wild Sir Roger de Coverley sort of country dance, `down
the valleys and over the hills,' until poor Nellie's eyes became quite
dazed in watching them.

"Come over to the other window, Bob," she cried at length, turning round
and getting up from her seat, suiting the action to the words, or at
least trying to do so. "Let us cross over, Bob."

But, here a difficulty arose.

An old gentleman, who was the only other occupant of the carriage
besides themselves, had dropped asleep over the newspaper which he had
been reading, letting this slide down on his knees while he stretched
out his legs right across the compartment, thus preventing Nellie from
carrying out her intention.

"I can't get by," she whispered to Bob, who had also turned round from
his window, and now giggled, grasping the situation. "I can't get by!"

"What, what?" ejaculated the old gentleman, suddenly waking up and
clutching hold of his paper, as if afraid that some one was going to
take it from him. "What, what did you say?"

Strangely enough, although Bob and his sister had been talking quite
loudly before, nothing that they had said had roused their fellow-
passenger until now, when, probably, Nellie's hushed voice led to this
very undesirable result--just in the same way as a miller is said to
sleep soundly amid all the clatter of the grinding wheels of his mill,
his repose being only disturbed when the motion of the machinery stops.
Poor Nellie hardly knew what to say now on the old gentleman, all at
once, sitting bolt upright and addressing her so unexpectedly.

"I was only speaking to my brother," she managed to stammer out, after a
little hesitating pause; "I am sorry to have awakened you, sir."

"Awakened me, eh?" snorted the old gentleman in a snappish tone. "Pooh,
pooh, nonsense, girl! I wasn't a bit asleep. Heard every word you
said. What was it you said, eh--what, what?"

Bob and Nellie exchanged a smile at this; for, the old gentleman had not
merely nodded previously to their having determined to change windows,
but his gold-rimmed spectacles had almost tumb