ther. But though she waved cheerful responses to their greetings, she
made her stride purposeful enough to discourage offers of company. They
all seemed young to her to-day. All her student activities seemed young.
As if, somehow, she had outgrown them. The feeling was none the less
real after she had laughed at herself for entertaining it.

She noticed presently that it was a good deal darker than it had any
right to be at this hour, and the sudden fall of the breeze and a
persistent shimmer of lightning supplied her with the explanation. When
she reached Forty-seventh Street, the break of the storm was obviously a
matter of minutes, so she decided to ride across to the elevated--it was
another mile, perhaps--rather than walk across as she had meant to do.
She didn't in the least mind getting wet, providing she could keep on
moving until she could change her clothes. But a ten-mile ride in the
elevated, with water squashing around in her boots and dripping out of
her hair, wasn't an alluring prospect.

She found quite a group of people waiting on the corner for a car, and
the car itself, when it came along, was crowded. So she handed her
nickel to the conductor over somebody's shoulder, and moved back to the
corner of the vestibule. It was frightfully stuffy inside and most of
the newly received passengers seemed to agree with her that the platform
was a pleasanter place to stay; which did very well until the next stop,
where half a dozen more prospective passengers were waiting. They were
in a hurry, too, since it had begun in very downright fashion to rain.

The conductor had been chanting, "Up in the car, please," in a
perfunctory cry all along. But at this crisis, his voice got a new
urgency. "Come on, now," he proclaimed, "you'll have to get inside!"

From the step the new arrivals pushed, the conductor pushed, and finally
he was able to give the signal for starting the car. The obvious
necessity of making room for those who'd be waiting at the next corner,
kept him at the task of herding them inside and the sheep-like docility
of an American crowd helped him.

Regretfully, with the rest, Rose made her way to the door.

"Fare, please," he said sharply as she came along.

She told him she had paid her fare, but for some reason, perhaps because
he was tired at the end of a long run, perhaps because he saw some one
else he suspected of being a spotter, he elected not to believe her.

"When did you pay it?" he