and then as a new idea was
presented he took out a card, and writing a few lines upon it, bade her
hand it to the conductor just as she was getting into the city.

Without her glasses Aunt Betsy could not read, and thinking it did not
matter now, she thrust the card into her pocket, and bidding her
companion good-by, took her seat in the other train. Lonely and a very
little homesick she began to feel; for her new neighbors were not
one-half as willing to talk as Bob had been, and she finally relapsed
into silence, which resulted in a quiet sleep, from which she awoke
just as they were entering the long, dark tunnel, which she would have
likened to Purgatory had she believed in such a place.

"I didn't know we ran into cellars," she said, faintly; but nobody
heeded her, or cared for the anxious and now timid-looking woman, who
grew more and more anxious, until suddenly remembering the card, she
drew it from her pocket, and the next time the conductor appeared handed
it to him, watching him while he read that "Lieutenant Robert Reynolds
would consider it as a personal favor if he would see the bearer into
the Fourth Avenue cars."

Surely there is a Providence which watches over all; and Lieutenant
Reynolds' thoughtfulness was not a mere chance, but the answer to the
simple trust Aunt Betsy had that God would take her safely to New York,
never doubting until she reached it that she had been heard. And even
then she did not doubt it long, for the conductor knew Lieutenant Bob,
and attended as faithfully to his wishes as if it had been a born
princess instead of Aunt Betsy Barlow whom he led to a street car,
ascertaining the number on the Bowery where she wished to stop, and
reporting to that conductor, who bowed in acquiescence, after glancing
at the woman, and knowing intuitively that she was from the country.
Could she have divested herself wholly of the fear that the conductor
would forget to put her off at the right place, Aunt Betsy would have
enjoyed that ride very much; and as it was, she looked around with
interest, thinking New York a mightily cluttered-up place, and wondering
if all the folks were in the streets. "They must be a gadding set," she
thought; and then, as a lady in flaunting robes took a seat beside her,
crowding her into a narrow space, the good old dame thought to show that
she did not resent it, by an attempt at sociability, asking if she knew
"Mrs. Peter Tubbs, whose husband kept a store on the