boy--and I was not in the least surprised a moment later to hear his mother address him as "Percy."  (It had to be either "Percy" or "Douglas.")  He was dressed in a tight and rather dusty suit of velveteen, with a crumpled lace collar and a plush jockey-cap. He looked about seven years old, wore curls down to his shoulders, and extracted intermittent nourishment from a long and glutinous stick of licorice.

The other was a girl--one of the prettiest little girls I have ever seen. I was not--and am not--an expert on children's ages, but I put her down as four years old. She was a plump and well-proportioned child, with an abundance of brown hair, solemn grey eyes, and a friendly smile. She sat curled up on the seat, leaning her head against her mother's arm, an oasis of contentment and neatness in that dusty railway carriage; and I felt dimly conscious that in due time I should like to possess a little girl of my own like that.

At present she was engaged in industriously staring The Freak out of countenance.

The Freak, not at all embarrassed, smiled back at her. Miss Welwyn broke into an unmaidenly chuckle, and her father put down "The Morning Post."

"Why this hilarity, my daughter?" he enquired.

The little girl, who was apparently accustomed to academically long words, indicated The Freak with a little nod of her head.

"I like that boy," she said frankly.  "Not the other. Too big!"

"Baby dearie, don't talk so!" exclaimed Mrs. Welwyn, highly scandalised.

"I apologise for my daughter's lack of reserve--and discrimination," said Mr. Welwyn to me, courteously.  "She will not be so sincere and unaffected in twenty years' time, I am afraid. Are you gentlemen going home for the holidays?"

I entered into conversation with him, in the course of which I learned that he was a member of the University, off on vacation. He did not tell me his College.

"Do you get long holi--vacations, sir, at Cambridge?" I asked.  "When do you have to be back?"

Youth is not usually observant, but on this occasion even my untutored faculties informed me that Mr. Welwyn was looking suddenly older.

"I am not going back," he said briefly. Then he smiled, a little mechanically, and initiated a discussion on 

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