at young
gentleman. "Haven't seen you since the night at the Presidio. 'Scuse me,
will you, I've got to take--er--my sister wants to see the brakeman, you
know.--With you the night of the fire." And with that Mr. Ray hopped
briskly away to the elevator, the ex-trainman following, leaving
Stuyvesant standing enviously at the counter.

Even a brakeman could go to her and hear her pleasant words and receive
that beaming smile and perhaps a clasp of that cool, slender little
hand, while he who so longed for it all stood without the pale.

Then an impulse that had been spurring him for half an hour overmastered
him. The parlors were public. At least he could go and take a peep at
her.

He started for the elevator, then changed his plan, turned, and, with
his cape still thrown over his arm, ascended the stairs. The clerk at
the office desk glanced curiously at him, but the uniform was
sufficient. In a moment he found himself in the broad corridor and
almost in front of the door-way to the parlor. Half a dozen groups,
women and officers, were scattered about in merry conversation, but
Stuyvesant's eyes were riveted instantly on a little party close by the
elevator shaft. There, hat in hand, bowing and blushing, stood the
brakeman. There, with a bright, genial smile on her serene and happy
face, stood a matronly woman who, despite her soft blue eyes and fair
hair and complexion, was patent at once as the mother of the lovely,
dark-eyed girl and the trim young soldier who formed the other members
of the group.

Three or four officers, some of them past the meridian, others young
subalterns, stood looking on in evident interest, and Stuyvesant halted
spellbound, not knowing just what to do.

It was over in a moment. The railwayman, confused but happy, had
evidently been the recipient of kind and appreciative words, for his
face was glowing, and Miss Ray's fairly beamed with the radiance of its
smile. Then the door flew open as the elevator-car stopped for
passengers, and the ex-brakeman backed in and disappeared from view.
Then the mother twined an arm about her daughter's slender waist and two
young officers sprang forward to her side. Together they came sauntering
towards the parlor door, and then, all on a sudden, she looked up and
saw him.

There was no mistaking the flash of instant recognition in her beautiful
eyes. Stuyvesant's heart leaped as his eager gaze met the swift glance,
and noted with joy that she certain