after her with round eyes of
amazement.

The two ladies bought their tickets and moved slowly down the central
platform, Mad Mathesis prattling on as usual--Clara silent, anxiously
reconsidering the calculation on which she rested her hopes of winning
the match.

"Mind where you go, dear!" cried her aunt, checking her just in time.
"One step more, and you'd have been in that pail of cold water!"

"I know, I know," Clara said, dreamily. "The pale, the cold, and the
moony----"

"Take your places on the spring-boards!" shouted a porter.

"What are _they_ for!" Clara asked in a terrified whisper.

"Merely to help us into the trains." The elder lady spoke with the
nonchalance of one quite used to the process. "Very few people can get
into a carriage without help in less than three seconds, and the trains
only stop for one second." At this moment the whistle was heard, and two
trains rushed into the station. A moment's pause, and they were gone
again; but in that brief interval several hundred passengers had been
shot into them, each flying straight to his place with the accuracy of a
Minie bullet--while an equal number were showered out upon the
side-platforms.

Three hours had passed away, and the two friends met again on the
Charing Cross platform, and eagerly compared notes. Then Clara turned
away with a sigh. To young impulsive hearts, like hers, disappointment
is always a bitter pill. Mad Mathesis followed her, full of kindly
sympathy.

"Try again, my love!" she said, cheerily. "Let us vary the experiment.
We will start as we did before, but not to begin counting till our
trains meet. When we see each other, we will say 'One!' and so count on
till we come here again."

Clara brightened up. "I shall win _that_," she exclaimed eagerly, "if I
may choose my train!"

Another shriek of engine whistles, another upheaving of spring-boards,
another living avalanche plunging into two trains as they flashed by:
and the travellers were off again.

Each gazed eagerly from her carriage window, holding up her handkerchief
as a signal to her friend. A rush and a roar. Two trains shot past each
other in a tunnel, and two travellers leaned back in their corners with
a sigh--or rather with _two_ sighs--of relief. "One!" Clara murmured to
herself. "Won! It's a word of good omen. _This_ time, at any rate, the
victory will be mine!"

But _was_ it?

KNOT IV.

THE DEAD RECKONING.

"I did dream of money-bags to-ni