thought a very good-looking boy; "perhaps this young
gentleman will look after me."

The old gentleman looked dubious, and would have preferred a person of
more maturity. Still, there was no choice, and he said:

"Young man, are you going to Cincinnati?"

"Yes, sir," said Tom.

"Then, if it won't be too much trouble, I will ask you to look after my
niece a little. I am unable to go with her myself."

"All right, sir; I'll do it," said Tom, in a confident tone.

"There goes the bell, uncle," said Bessie. "You'd better go, or you
will be carried along with us."

The old gentleman bent over and kissed his niece. Our hero thought he
should have been willing to relieve him of the duty. The young girl
beside him looked so fresh and pretty that, though he was too young to
fall in love, he certainly did feel considerable pleasure in the
thought that she was to be his companion in a journey of several
hundred miles. It gave him a feeling of importance, being placed in
charge of her, and he couldn't help wondering whether he would have got
the chance if he had been dressed in his old street suit.

"There's a good deal in clo's," thought Tom, philosophically. "It makes
all the difference between a young gentleman and a bootblack."

"Would you like to sit by the window?" he asked, by way of being
sociable and polite.

"Oh, no! I can see very well from here," said the young lady. "Do you
come from Buffalo?"

"No; I am from New York."

"I never was there; I should like to go very much. I have heard that
Central Park is a beautiful place."

"Yes, it's a bully place," said Tom.

Bessie laughed.

"That's a regular boy's word," she said. "Miss Wiggins, our teacher,
was always horrified when she heard any of us girls use it. I remember
one day I let it out without thinking, and she heard it. 'Miss Benton,'
said she, 'never again let me hear you employ that _inelegant_
expression. That a young lady _under my charge_ should, _even once_,
have been guilty of such a breach of propriety, mortifies me
extremely.'"

Bessie pursed up her pretty lips, and imitated the manner of the prim
schoolmistress, to the great amusement of our hero.

"Is that the way she talked?" he asked.

"Yes; and she glared at me through her spectacles. She looked like a
beauty, with her tall bony figure, and thin face. Did you ever go to
boarding-school?"

"No," said Tom; "nor to any other," he might almost have added.

"You wouldn't like it, t