THEIR ARMS ENTWINED,
their cheeks touching, and their spirits winging through dreamland back to the good land of Sweden far away. Utterly unconscious of their surroundings or of the great city into which they had entered, ignorant of the fact that they had halted at one of the chief stopping places on their journey, they slept on, and as I watched them and saw their lips move and the unintelligible words drop forth, I knew that they spoke of home. One poor man with bowed head was weeping quietly, and I asked him what ailed him.
“Oh, sir, she died in Monthrehal.”
“Who died in Montreal?”
“Me wife, sor, the voyidge killed her sor; oh, wirra, wirra, why did I bring her away.”
Three little children were clinging to his knees and looking up at me with wondering eyes. The man glanced up through his tears, which he struck from his eyes with his shut fists.
“Sure I’m better off than that poor crathur yonder—go an’ shpake to her, sor.”
The woman he pointed out was sitting alone in her seat. She was young and good looking, but her face was drawn and pinched with some sudden and bitter woe. Her baby was wrapped in a dark shawl, lying very still, and she rocked it gently in her arms, and talked to it in cooing voice.
“Is your baby sick?”
“No sir.”
“It is sleeping then?”
“Yes sir, my baby is sleeping.”
A little girl who was on her knees beside the woman lifted the shawl from the sleeper’s face. The baby was dead! The mother looked up with