arm-in-arm, and Gertrude was the first to speak.

"Didn't you think we were all going to be killed?"

"No; but I did think I should never forgive myself if anything happened to you."

"It wouldn't have been your fault. And I've had a glorious bit of distraction; I shall remember it as long as I live."

"Yes; you have actually driven a train fifty miles an hour," laughed Brockway, handing her up the steps of car Naught-fifty.

"I have; and now I shall go in and be scolded eighty miles an hour to pay for it. But I sha'n't mind that. Good-night, and thank you ever so much. We shall see you in the morning?"

"Yes." Brockway said it confidently, and gave a tug at the bell-cord, to let Maclure know they were safely aboard; but when the door of the private car had yawned and swallowed Miss Vennor, he remembered the President's probable frame of mind, and thought it doubtful.

X

A CONFIDENCE EN ROUTE

When Brockway pulled the bell-cord, he meant to drop off and wait till the Tadmor came along—a manœuvre which would enable him to rejoin his party without intruding on the President's privacy. Then that reflection about Mr. Vennor's probable frame of mind, and the thought that the late excursion into the fair country of joy would doubtless never be repeated, came to delay him, and he let the train get under way before he remembered what it was that he had intended doing. Whereupon, he scoffed at his own infatuation, and went into the Ariadne to chat with the Burtons until another halt should give him a chance to get back to the Tadmor.

The route to the body of the car led past the smoking-room, and the passenger agent, having missed his after-dinner cigar, was minded to turn aside. But the place was crowded, and he hung hesitant upon the threshold.

"Come in," said Burton, who was one of the smokers.

"No, I believe not; there are too many of you. I'll go and talk to Mrs. Burton."

"Do; she's spoiling to quiz you."

"To quiz me? What about?"

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