that seemed, to the analytic, but part of the fascination of her picturesque dignity, but which marked a pitiful "penury of soul." She was charitable when no contact was exacted which might soil her white hands and morals. She loved her child as she had loved her husband, with a rigid, patient attention to every duty, mathematically, gracefully. She had read and thought, but considered it outside the province of a woman to lay claim to either. Nell's quick perception had probed to the limit her sister's character, and she had learned to avoid any close contact with its coldness and artificiality. A repulsion, born of the knowledge that she was understood, caused Agnes to build still higher the wall between herself and her clearheaded sister, which Nell respected perfectly, but with a touch of pity tingeing the feeling. Strangely different were these sisters, and a year's close contact had heightened the faults of both. The hours passed; the passengers slept, ate, talked, and stared in an endless routine. People were beginning to be very polite to one another, and card cliques were being formed that lasted to the journey's end.

ment. It took all her courage away to determine not to flee ignominiously, and then all her reason to recollect what she wished to buy. There was only one tooth-brush in the store, telling the tale of either a very small demand or a lamentably stinted supply, and as Nell rubbed her thumb over it testily, she heard some one approach from behind and inquire of the clerk, "Have you any tooth-brushes?" Her heart gave a great bound and then stood still, as she recognized Saint Bartholomew's quiet voice. And there was only one tooth-brush!

After an instant spent by the three in silence, Nell burst into a merry laugh, and, turning, held up the brush and said, “This is the only one in town. Please take it. We can wait," with such a quizzical expression in her blushing face that the stranger broke into a hearty laugh, in which the jovial clerk joined them with such a shout that Nell's feeling of terror returned. After a little courteous demurring between the two purchasers, it ended by Nell's buying it for the sum of two dollars; for the clerk realized the capabilities of the situation, and named the price with unblushing effrontery.

"Wa'al, I'll be 'tarnally gummed if ever I see anything ez comical ez that," yelled the giant behind the counter, with another roar of laughter that Nell and her companion heard half way to the train.

After passing many stations that bore no evidence of the presence of a tooth-brush, the train stopped for half an hour at a settlement that looked more promising than usual. So Nell walked demurely through the groups of rough looking men lounging about the platform, and zealously avoided the knots of squatting Indians, fantastically dressed and painted, who were all engaged playing games of cards not unknown among the Western Whites. Nell found a comparatively harmless looking store, whose front was covered with a patchwork of signs, announcing that within could be found the Justice of the Peach, the Doctor, Wells, Fargo & Co.'s agent, the telegraph office, a few select groceries and drugs, and an unrivaled stock of dry goods. Peering in cautiously, to see if it was not a saloon in disguise, but seeing a notice of nothing more desperate in character than "ginger-pop," Nell entered, after a reassuring glance back at the train.

"What'll yer hev, miss?" shouted, in genial tones, the swarthy giant behind the counter,

ing, “Papoose, one bitty.”

"Do they really want to sell them as cheap as that?" asked Nell, wonderingly, while a compunctious thought of Elsie flashed across her mind.

"Oh, no; but those mysterious looking humps on their backs are their papooses, strapped to boards, and covered with shawls or pieces of blanket; and for the exorbitant sum of one bit they uncover to the world's cold gaze their faces," answered Saint Bartholomew, with a smile, tossing a piece of silver to one of the squaws, who instantly slipped the board over her shoulder, and, lifting the rags, showed a very hearty little warrior, sleeping soundly. As other passengers pressed around to see the papoose, the mother quickly recovered its face, and, shaking her head with a hideous grimace, said, "No, no. No bitty, no see papoose," and shuffled off, satisfied with her day's returns.

"Cooper never could have seen Piutes, or else his powers of idealization have been grossly underrated," said Nell, with a shudder, as they entered the car.

"May I make you acquainted with my sister, Mrs. Alston?" introduced Nell, as they rejoined the party.

that poor old saint's, whose only virtue was the manner of his death." Then, after a pause, he said, "I feel distinctly angry at you, Miss Grey, this minute, for making me serve up to you such an enormous dish of the ego."

ter."

"Miss Grey, my sister, Mr. Winter. Now, tell me the success of your commission, Nell," she added, with a tremor of sweetness in her voice that Nell was used to in the presence of strangers.

As the train moved on, they fell into lively conversation, in which Mrs. Reddington soon joined, and time flew quickly by until bed-time.

"There is a touch of monotony in pickles and cold turkey three times a day, Agnes," said Nell, plaintively, after breakfast the next morning.

"True; but I am not strong enough to stand the rush and scurry of station meals, nor the probability of fricasseed cockroaches; so I see no alternative," answered Agnes, beckoning to Rufus, who cleared away and "washed up" daily, for a trifling consideration administered | every morning.

"What a lugubrious creature you have in the way of a valet, Mr. Winter," said Nell, as he joined her soon after, sitting opposite Agnes and Chesterfield, who were immersed in European travels.

"Yet Jeremiah is a pearl beyond price, Miss Grey; faithful, true, and tender-hearted as a woman. His doleful face is the strongest bond between us; it cheers me to look at him, because he succeeds in looking so very much more miserable than I ever feel, even at my worst; and sometimes I am very like a perambulating tombstone, too," laughing with a little bitterness that Nell hastened to drive away by leading him to tell of his home and travels. He had spent the last eight years of his life in traveling hither and thither in the hope of escaping his doom, which was hereditary, and now, in his thirty-eighth year, he had given up in despair, and was returning to his old Boston home, where his mother awaited him with a bright, sweet patience and long-abiding love that was this man's religion. Much of this and more he told Nell, who listened as women do, drawing him unconsciously on by the subtlety of her sympathy. When she told him of the resemblance she found in his face to Saint Bartholomew, he said, "Well, that's odd! Three years ago I met a musty old German professor in Berlin, who told me the same thing. I hope my end is not going to be quite so disastrous as

"That remark is the only one containing the true essence of egotism, Mr. Winter," answered

life, a fragment of a grand whole, and, as such, interests me."

Instantly resenting her change of mood, he answered, "You are ungenerous; you give nothing in return. That is why I feel it."

"It never, then, struck me that it takes more generosity to listen than to tell," she answered, archly.

From personalities the two drifted off into the broad sea of generalities, and he was surprised to find in this girl, this child, as she seemed to him, a depth of thought and brilliancy of fancy that made him look to his laurels. As he bowed over her hand that night, after another of these "soul-wanderings," as she called them, she looked up into his face, and said gravely, "I must thank you for paying me the compliment of forgetting for an hour that I am a woman. Good night."

"Good night, Jane Eyre," he said.

The next morning they arose early, to be in readiness to change cars at Ogden. To Mrs. Alston's surprise, the nurse did not make her appearance to dress Elsie. After a careful hunt it was found that she had disappeared and was not to be found on the train. The conductor recollected that he thought he saw the figure of a woman leave the car at Kelton, run down the platform, and disappear into the darkness beyond. The train being in motion, he had no time for investigation, but Agnes felt convinced that the fugitive was the nurse, and she accepted the trying situation with her usual grace, but with a shade of added irony in her tone when she addressed the cheerful, sweet-natured Nell. At Ogden they telegraphed back, and received answer that no such person as the nurse had yet been seen, and her whereabout remained forever a mystery.

A last fee to Rufus transferred the party to the cars of the Union Pacific, where the fact that he went no farther on the line obtruded itself, as he bade them good-bye with true negro condescension.

The occupants of the car found themselves in exactly the same relative positions that they were in on the Central Pacific, as is generally the case.

Jeremiah became from this time Elsie's slave, to the intense amusement of everybody. For it was irresistibly comical to see the efforts of

the quiet, melancholy little man to keep his mood parallel with mad-cap Elsie's, who seemed to comprehend the full possibilities of the situation.

"Mr. Winter, I think we are indebted to you for these grateful attentions on the part of Jeremiah," said Agnes, toward afternoon, as they sat playing cassino with Nell and Mrs. Reddington.

"Not in the least, Mrs. Alston, although I'd be only too glad to be of some use in these calamitous times. It was his own idea, without a word of explanation to me. I have been hugely pleased at this sudden move on the part of the old fellow. After this nothing will surprise me."

"It means something, I'm convinced,” said Nell, ambiguously, with a curious smile.

"He must be very unhappy; I never have seen him laugh yet," said Mrs. Reddington, losing, as she always did, her "little cassino."

"Laugh! Why, my dear madam, I have known old Jerry fifteen years, and I never even saw him smile but twice. The first time was when his wife died and he broke his leg within two days. When I demanded the reason of his ill-timed mirth, he said, 'Because, Mr. Morse, I feel that the Lord has not forgotten me, humble worm that I am.' Poor fellow! he has a terrible chronic disease, which he inherited, and "Gracious me!" interrupted Mrs. Reddington, excitedly, "and that child has been with him all the morning!"

"The disease, I grant, is contagious, but Elsie is safe; it is called Puritanism," replied Mr. Winter gravely, saving an ace with great precision.

"What was the second occasion of his smiling?" asked Nell.

"When we were on one of those disgraceful tugs in the English Channel, and Jerry was very sea-sick. Immediately after a very severe paroxysm of agony I think he smiled. I may be mistaken; but my impression is that it was a smile."

"Sea-sickness never made me smile," said Mrs. Reddington, looking with sudden curiosity at Jeremiah.

Nell played the game through; then giving up her hand to Chesterfield, she took a magazine and sat in Mr. Winter's empty section, where Elsie and her meek slave soon followed.

"Jeremiah," said Nell, suddenly, facing him as he sat on the floor playing marbles with his little tyrant, "tell me what happened to Mary. Come, be honest!"

The little man started and stared in absolute horror at Nell, and, in a slow whisper, he said, "Woe is me now! for the Lord hath added

"It was in this wise, miss," he continued, still staring in wonder at Nell: "firstly, I found in brotherly talk with this Mary that she was a human soul led astray by the Romish Church into the paths of

"Please skip that part, Jeremiah, and go on with your secondly," said Nell, controlling her rising laughter.

Too accustomed to such a reception of his dissertations to be much disturbed, he continued:

"Well, you see, Miss Grey, I sought to bring a little of the light of true righteousness into the night of her gropin' soul, and exhorted with her considerable; and last evening, to better show to her the awful sinfulness of her ways, I took to tellin' her of the suddentness of death and of what might happen any minute to her, considerin' the ways of enjines, and Indians infesterin' the plains, and buffaloes and wolves, and Devil's Gates and Slides ahead; and I'm sorrier than I can tell, miss, but I think this last dun it. Consarn her superstitions!” cried he, made human by his intense self-reproach.

After setting his mind at ease, Nell dismissed him, and then gave vent to her laughter, to the surprise of the absorbed card-players. She called Mr. Winter, and, amidst little ripples of laughter, that ran before and after and over her sentences, she managed to tell the tale of the lost Mary. Jeremiah's morbid anxiety to compensate in some measure for the ill effects of his missionary work was so humble that he was forgiven by all concerned, although Nell vowed that the scenery was a blank to her for two days, and her thoughts could not soar above the responsibility of the condensed milk and alcohol lamps.

One morning, after an unusually severe effort to amuse Elsie with a handkerchief tied into manly shape and baptized "Romeo" (although a prejudice of color changed it to "Othello" toward the journey's end), and a worsted doll termed "Juliet," and just as Nell was rendering with great truth and delicacy the "balcony scene," Elsie broke into a long, persistent wail, that bespoke such an utter lack of proper interest in the matter in hand that Nell calmly opened the window near her, and pretended to toss out the weeping child, with such a look of desperation that Mrs. Reddington sprang to her feet, seized Nell's arm, and said, trembling with excitement, "What on earth are you going to do, Miss Grey?”

"I purpose putting this-this-thing out of the window, to grow, 'like a wayside flower on the highways of usefulness,' as Tupper says happiness does," Nell answered, with a calm fiendishness that sent Mr. Winter out of the car with a shout of laughter.

"Are you mad to act so?" continued the righteously aroused old lady.

"I think you have diagnosed the malady; I was mad, but your words have brought me to my senses, and I'll bear with this 'death in life' a little longer," Nell answered penitently, ignoring her sister's frowning disapprobation, and reveling in the fact of Mrs. Reddington's obtuseness. From that hour she eyed Nell with suspicion, and never allowed her granddaughter to be alone with her if she could help it, for the child was blind to Nell's idiosyncrasies and worshiped the sprightly young lady, much as she did a marionette show. Winter returned in a short time, followed by a sturdy, rosycheeked young girl, whom he introduced as Polly, who was traveling with her mother, second class, and who would take charge of Elsie. Nell sank back, after placing the child in Polly's strong arms, and looking up into Winter's face, said, “I can't thank you all in one day for your thoughtfulness, but I will dedicate certain hours of my after life to singing a daily Benedictus composed in commemoration of this event."

"Give me all the time otherwise wasted on poor Elsie, and I'll call it quits," he answered, taking his seat beside her.

"Done!" cried Nell, "and now I am going to beat you twenty straight games of euchre. Get your pack, please; Elsie chewed up our jack of hearts." They chaffed each other mercilessly during the usual incessant round of card-playing that forms nine-tenths of the existence of overland travelers. He caricatured, with a skilled hand, their fellow-passengers, to which Nell added doggerels, he playing the Scotch reviewer with a severity that ended in many a long drawn battle. Often they fell into serious mood, and followed the will o' the wisp of the mind whithersoever it might lead. Nell began to feel that she had a strange influence over the world-worn man. Between the intervals when they were together he sat looking from his window at the great lonely waste stretching to the horizon on every side, with his face sunk into an expression of utter weariness that made plain the ravages of the disease that was sapping his life away. Then turning his head a little, he would watch Nell a few minutes, and, rising, would go to her side, and slowly and impercep tibly a great goodly warmth came into his face and manner, and he was young and strong again.

Mrs. Alston was one of those women who think that a man-a lover, if possible—is one of the essentials to the proper surroundings of a young lady, and the greatest pleasure of her life was the fostering of a match. Once in her life she had striven to further the suit of a man who loved and courted Nell, whose clear eyes detected her sister's furtherance, and the few decisive words she thereupon spoke decided Agnes never again to disturb her own peace by any further active interference in Nell's affairs of the heart. Agnes's instinct quickly caught the charm that bound Winter to her bright, sunny-natured, and healthy-minded young sister, and recognizing the probability of at least a flirtation, she accepted the situation with well controlled interest. So Agnes frequently withdrew to Mrs. Reddington's section, where she and that good lady were eloquently entertained by Chesterfield, who held forth on the scenery, consulting his guide-book every few minutes, for he was that greatest of bores, a statistical traveler.

Slowly the train swept over the weird, dreary plains, that seem not of the world nor for it—a great anomaly, ghost-like in its wide separation from all precedent. As they neared the summit of the Rocky Mountains it grew very cold, which is the sole indication of the long, wonderfully gradual climb.

On the morning of the fourth day, as Nell climbed down from her perch, she was surprised to find that Winter's section was still shrouded in its curtains. He was generally up and dressed by daylight, being unable to breathe easily in the narrow berth. As noon approached, and still he did not appear, Nell waylaid Jeremiah and asked the cause.

"He's had one of his bad spells, miss. He says it's the scarcity of the air, or somethin' like that, up on these mountains, and he has been havin' a terrible time all night. If he has a hemmyrage it will go hard with him, poor boy! The doctor, in the next car, came in, and told him to lay quiet until this evening, when we are over the highest part."

This news soon spread through the car, and a hush fell upon its inmates. During the afternoon Jeremiah brought a note to Nell, who tore it open quickly, almost anticipating a last will and testament, but found this:

''MY DEAREST FOE:-Do you all intend to drive me slowly mad by this hideous silence? If I do not hear that ringing laugh of yours within ten minutes, I'll get up, and the doctor, Jerry, and the consequences can take care of themselves. I now give you an order for three complimentary epitaphs, from which I'll choose one, and file it for either immediate or future use. Would you care if it proved the former?

"MORSE WINTER."