[CHAPTER II—IN A THIRD-CLASS CARRIAGE.]
Three girls were traveling in a third-class carriage to King’s Cross. The train was not an express; it stopped at nearly every station. The carriage in which they sat was more or less crowded with country people who carried baskets, babies, feeding-bottles, and all sorts of parcels. The girls, looking bright and energetic, occupied corner seats. A woman with a fretful baby on her knee sat near one.
“How tired you must be!” said this girl. “Do let me hold your baby for a little.”
As she spoke all the other passengers turned and stared at her. She was a tall, slim, very plainly-dressed girl; her dark-blue serge dress lacked freshness, her sailor hat was decidedly the worse for wear, and her gloves had been mended in many places. The woman whom the girl addressed, glancing first at the shabby clothes, then at the kind, bright, handsome young face, decided that the girl was not very much above herself in the social scale, and agreed to let her hold her baby for a bit.
A charming color came into the girl’s face as she received the small atom of humanity on her knee. She held the baby tenderly; her young arms were strong, the little one nestled down comfortably, and the mother gave her a glance of admiration.
“Why, I do declare, my dear,” she exclaimed, “one would think you had half-a-dozen of your own, you handle the little mite that knowingly!”
“Oh, it is because I love children,” replied the girl. “It is kind of you to let me hold your little one. Look, Marjorie, do look; hasn’t it pretty little fingers; and oh, do see its tiny toes!”
Another tall girl bent forward and began to examine the baby’s feet. They were pink and very small; the girl stretched out her palm, and the other girl placed the little foot upon it.
“You are not to take the little dear from me,” said the first girl.
“Oh, my dear Eileen, I would not deprive you of the little treasure for the world,” was the quick reply. “I know by your face you are in the seventh heaven.”