weariness.

"Come, you be off!" the Station-master roughly accosted the poor old
man. "You be off, and make way for your betters! This way, my Lady!"

he added in a perfectly different tone. "If your Ladyship will take a
seat, the train will be up in a few minutes." The cringing servility of

his manner was due, no doubt, to the address legible on the pile of
luggage, which announced their owner to be "Lady Muriel Orme, passenger

to Elveston, via Fayfield Junction."
As I watched the old man slowly rise to his feet, and hobble a few

paces down the platform, the lines came to my lips:-
"From sackcloth couch the Monk arose,

With toil his stiffen'd limbs he rear'd;
A hundred years had flung their snows

On his thin locks and floating beard."
[Image...'Come, you be off!']

But the lady scarcely noticed the little incident. After one
glance at the 'banished man,' who stood tremulously leaning on his

stick, she turned to me. "This is not an American rocking-chair, by any
means! Yet may I say," slightly changing her place, so as to make room

for me beside her, "may I say, in Hamlet's words, 'Rest, rest--'"
she broke off with a silvery laugh.

"--perturbed Spirit!"' I finished the sentence for her. "Yes, that
describes a railway-traveler exactly! And here is an instance of it,"

I added, as the tiny local train drew up alongside the platform,
and the porters bustled about, openingcarriage-doors--one of them

helping the poor old man to hoist himself into a third-class carriage,
while another of them obsequiously conducted the lady and myself into a

first-class.
She paused, before following him, to watch the progress of the other

passenger. "Poor old man!" she said. "How weak and ill he looks!
It was a shame to let him be turned away like that. I'm very sorry--"

At this moment it dawned on me that these words were not addressed to me,
but that she was unconsciously thinking aloud. I moved away a few

steps, and waited to follow her into the carriage, where I resumed the
conversation.

"Shakespeare must have traveled by rail, if only in a dream:
'perturbed Spirit' is such a happy phrase."

"'Perturbed' referring, no doubt," she rejoined, "to the sensational
booklets peculiar to the Rail. If Steam has done nothing else, it has

at least added a whole new Species to English Literature!"
"No doubt of it," I echoed. "The true origin of all our medical

books--and all our cookery-books--"
"No, no!" she broke in merrily. "I didn't mean our Literature!

We are quite abnormal. But the booklets--the little thrilling romances,
where the Murder comes at page fifteen, and the Wedding at page forty

--surely they are due to Steam?"
"And when we travel by Electricity if I may venture to develop your

theory we shall have leaflets instead of booklets, and the Murder and
the Wedding will come on the same page."

"A development worthy of Darwin!", the lady exclaimed enthusiastically.
"Only you reverse his theory. Instead of developing a mouse into an

elephant, you would develop an elephant into a mouse!" But here we
plunged into a tunnel, and I leaned back and closed my eyes for a

moment, trying to recall a few of the incidents of my recent dream.
"I thought I saw--" I murmured sleepily: and then the phrase insisted

on conjugating itself, and ran into "you thought you saw--he thought
he saw--" and then it suddenly went off into a song:--

"He thought he saw an Elephant,
That practised on a fife:

He looked again, and found it was
A letter from his wife.

'At length I realise,' he said,
"The bitterness of Life!'"

And what a wild being it was who sang these wild words! A Gardener he
seemed to be yet surely a mad one, by the way he brandished his

rake--madder, by the way he broke, ever and anon, into a frantic
jig--maddest of all, by the shriek in which he brought out the last

words of the stanza!
[Image....The gardener]

It was so far a description of himself that he had the feet of
an Elephant: but the rest of him was skin and bone: and the wisps of

loose straw, that bristled all about him, suggested that he had been
originally stuffed with it, and that nearly all the stuffing had come

out.
Sylvie and Bruno waited patiently till the end of the first verse.

Then Sylvie advanced alone (Bruno having suddenly turned shy)
and timidly introduced herself with the words "Please, I'm Sylvie!"

"And who's that other thing?', said the Gardener.
"What thing?" said Sylvie, looking round. "Oh, that's Bruno.

He's my brother."
"Was he your brother yesterday?" the Gardener anxiously enquired.

"Course I were!" cried Bruno, who had gradually crept nearer,
and didn't at all like being talked about without having his share in

the conversation.
"Ah, well!" the Gardener said with a kind of groan. "Things change so,

here. Whenever I look again, it's sure to be something different!
Yet I does my duty! I gets up wriggle-early at five--"

"If I was oo," said Bruno, "I wouldn't wriggle so early. It's as bad as
being a worm!" he added, in an undertone to Sylvie.

"But you shouldn't be lazy in the morning, Bruno," said Sylvie.
"Remember, it's the early bird that picks up the worm!"

"It may, if it likes!" Bruno said with a slight yawn. "I don't like
eating worms, one bit. I always stop in bed till the early bird has

picked them up!"
"I wonder you've the face to tell me such fibs!" cried the Gardener.

To which Bruno wisely replied "Oo don't want a face to tell fibs
wiz--only a mouf."

Sylvie discreetly changed the subject. "And did you plant all these
flowers?" she said.

"What a lovely garden you've made! Do you know, I'd like to live here
always!"

"In the winter-nights--" the Gardener was beginning.
"But I'd nearly forgotten what we came about!" Sylvie interrupted.

"Would you please let us through into the road? There's a poor old
beggar just gone out--and he's very hungry--and Bruno wants to give

him his cake, you know!"
"It's as much as my place is worth!', the Gardener muttered, taking a

key from his pocket, and beginning to unlock a door in the garden-wall.
"How much are it wurf? "Bruno innocently enquired.

But the Gardener only grinned. "That's a secret!" he said. "Mind you
come back quick!" he called after the children, as they passed out into

the road. I had just time to follow them, before he shut the door
again.

We hurried down the road, and very soon caught sight of the old Beggar,
about a quarter of a mile ahead of us, and the children at once set off

running to overtake him.
Lightly and swiftly they skimmed over the ground, and I could not in

the least understand how it was I kept up with them so easily. But the
unsolved problem did not worry me so much as at another time it might

have done, there were so many other things to attend to.
The old Beggar must have been very deaf, as he paid no attention

whatever to Bruno's eager shouting, but trudged wearily on, never
pausing until the child got in front of him and held up the slice of

cake. The poor little fellow was quite out of breath, and could only
utter the one word "Cake!" not with the gloomy decision with which Her

Excellency had so latelypronounced it, but with a sweet childish
timidity, looking up into the old man's face with eyes that loved