As they approached the end of the journey, the man penciled a brief note to her mother on a card, Signed what purported to be his name, and gave it to her. Then he asked if he might get her a carriage provided her uncle, whom she expected, did not meet her, and she assented at once.
When the train arrived in New York, and the conductor came and took her traveling-bag, she was vexed, and protested that the gentleman had promised to look after her. The official told her kindly, but firmly, that her father had put her in his care, and he should not leave her until he had seen her under her uncle's protection or put her in a carriage himself. She turned for appeal to her new acquaintance, but he had vanished.
When she reached home after her visit, and told her experience, and presented the card, her mother said she had never known nor heard of such a man. The stranger had evidently sat within hearing distance of the girl and her schoolmate, and listening to their merry chatter all the way from Boston to Springfield, had given him the clue to names and localities that enabled him to play his sinister game. Only the faithfulness of the wise conductor saved her from possibilities too painful to be recorded here.—Youth's Companion.
HAROLD'S FOOTMAN
"Bob," called Harold to his little brother, who was playing on the back door-step, "trot out to the barn and bring me my saw, will you?"
Bobby left his two pet cats, Topsy and Tiger, on the steps, and ran obediently for the tool. Harold was very busy constructing a hen-coop, and he needed a great deal of assistance.
"Thanks," he said, shortly, as the little boy returned. "Now, where did I put those nails? O, they're on the kitchen table! Hand them out." Bobby produced the nails, and sat down again to watch the work.
"Are you going to finish it today, Hal?" he asked.
"No; haven't time. I am going to the commons in about ten minutes. There is a lacrosse match on; but I want to drive these nails first. O, say, Bob, my lacrosse stick is up in my room! You go and bring it down, I am so awfully busy."
Bobby ran eagerly up the stairs. He always went on errands for his big brother very willingly, but this time he made special haste; for a hope was entering his heart that perhaps Hal would take him to see the match.