The news was that Miss Newcome’s maid (a giddy thing from the country, who had not even learned as yet to hold her tongue) had announced with giggling delight to Lady Ann’s maid that Mr. Clive had given Miss Ethel a kiss in the tunnel, and she supposed it was a match.
Clive, we are told, did not know whether to laugh or to be in a rage over this report. He evidently felt called upon, however, to swear that he was as innocent of all intention of kissing Miss Ethel as of embracing Queen Elizabeth.
AN AMOROUS WESTERN YOUTH.
A young Montana chap upon stepping aboard of a sleeping-car thus addressed the conductor:
“See here, captain, I want one of your best bunks for this young woman, and one for myself individually. One will do for us when we get to the Bluff,—hey, Mariar?” (Here he gave a playful poke at “Mariar,” to which she replied, “Now, John, quit.”) “For, you see, we’re goin’ to git married at Mariar’s uncle’s. We might ’a bin married at Montanny, but we took a habit to wait till we got to the Bluff, bein’ Mariar’s uncle is a minister, and they charge a goshfired price for hitchin’ folks at Montanny.”
“Mariar” was assigned to one of the best “bunks.” During a stoppage of the train at a station, the voice of John was heard in pleading accents, unconscious that the train had stopped, and that his tones could be heard throughout the car:
“Now, Mariar, you might give a feller jes one.”
“John, you quit, or I’ll git out right here, and hoof it back to Montanny in the snow-storm.”
“Only one little kiss, Mariar, and I hope to die if I don’t——”