fashionable untidiness, and her boots were guiltless of a patch,--that
she was the possessor of a mine of wealth in two of the eight trunks
belonging to her aunt, that she was travelling like any lady of the
land with man- and maid-servant at her command, and that she was
leaving work and care behind her for a month or two of novelty and rest.

When these agreeable facts were fully realized, and Aunt Pen had fallen
asleep behind her veil, Debby took out a book, and indulged in her
favorite luxury, soon forgetting past, present, and future in the
inimitable history of Martin Chuzzlewit. The sun blazed, the cars
rattled, children cried, ladies nodded, gentlemen longed for the solace
of prohibited cigars, and newspapers were converted into sun-shades,
nightcaps, and fans; but Debby read on, unconscious of all about her,
even of the pair of eves that watched her from the Opposite corner of
the car. A Gentleman with a frank, strong-featured face sat therein,
and amused himself by scanning with thoughtful gaze the countenances of
his fellow-travellers. Stout Aunt Pen, dignified even in her sleep,
was a "model of deportment" to the rising generation; but the student
of human nature found a more attractive subject in her companion, the
girl with an apple-blossom face and merry brown eyes, who sat smiling
into her book, never heeding that her bonnet was awry, and the wind
taking unwarrantable liberties with her ribbons and her hair.

Innocent Debby turned her pages, unaware that her fate sat opposite in
the likeness of a serious, black-bearded gentleman, who watched the
smiles rippling from her lips to her eyes with an interest that
deepened as the minutes passed. If his paper had been full of anything
but "Bronchial Troches" and "Spalding's Prepared Glue," he would have
found more profitable employment; but it wasn't, and with the usual
readiness of idle souls he fell into evil ways, and permitted
curiosity, that feminine sin, to enter in and take possession of his
manly mind. A great desire seized him to discover what book his pretty
neighbor; but a cover hid the name, and he was too distant to catch it
on the fluttering leaves. Presently a stout Emerald-Islander, with her
wardrobe oozing out of sundry paper parcels, vacated the seat behind
the two ladies; and it was soon quietly occupied by the individual for
whom Satan was finding such indecorous employment. Peeping round the
little gray bonnet, past a brown braid and a