_Porter_, laughing.--"Well, no, sah. Fact is, _dis_ cah don't belong on dis train. It's a Pullman that we hitched on when you got in, and we's taking it along for one of de Eastern roads. We let you in 'cause de Drawing-rooms was all full. Same with de lady"--looking sympathetically at her, as he takes up his steps to go out. "Can I do anything for you now, miss?" _Miss G._, plaintively.--"No, thank you; nothing whatever." She has turned while Mr. Richards and the porter have been speaking, and now faces the back of the former, but her veil is drawn closely. The porter goes out. _Mr. R._, wheeling round so as to confront her.--"I wish you would speak to me half as kindly as you do to that darky, Lucy." _Miss G._--"_He_ is a gentleman!" _Mr. R._--"He is an urbane and well-informed nobleman. At any rate, he's a man and a brother. But so am I." Miss Galbraith does not reply, and after a pause Mr. Richards resumes. "Talking of gentlemen: I recollect, once, coming up on the day-boat to Poughkeepsie, there was a poor devil of a tipsy man kept following a young fellow about, and annoying him to death--trying to fight him, as a tipsy man will, and insisting that the young fellow had insulted him. By-and-by he lost his balance, and went overboard, and the other jumped after him and fished him out." Sensation on the part of Miss Galbraith, who stirs uneasily in her chair, looks out of the window, then looks at Mr. Richards, and drops her head. "There was a young lady on board, who had seen the whole thing--a very charming young lady indeed, with pale blonde hair growing very thick over her forehead, and dark eye-lashes to the sweetest blue eyes in the world. Well, this young lady's papa was amongst those who came up to say civil things to the young fellow when he got aboard again, and to ask the honour--he said the _honour_--of his acquaintance. And when he came out of his state-room in dry clothes, this infatuated old gentleman was waiting for him, and took him and introduced him to his wife and daughter. And the daughter said, with tears in her eyes, and a perfectly intoxicating impulsiveness, that it was the grandest and the most heroic and the noblest thing that she had ever seen, and she should always be a better girl for having seen it. Excuse me, Miss Galbraith, for troubling you with these facts of a personal history which, as you say, is a matter of perfect indifference to you. The young fellow didn't think at the time he had done anything extraordinary; but I don't suppose he _did_ expect to live to have the same girl tell him he was no gentleman." _Miss G._, wildly.--"Oh, Allen, Allen! You _know_ I think you are a gentleman, and I always did!" _Mr. R._, languidly.--"Oh, I merely had your word for it, just now, that you didn't." Tenderly.--"Will you hear me, Lucy?" _Miss G._, faintly.--"Yes." _Mr. R._--"Well, what is it I've done? Will you tell me if I guess right?"