The needles kept on their course, the Dear Old Lady's thoughts worked in with every stitch. It was now twelve o'clock, and Boston hours away. John would dine late if he waited for his old mother. The red napkin had now been laid on the seat cushion and the sandwiches placed side by side in full sight of the car. Concealment was no longer necessary. "I don't s'pose ye left any water in the cooler, did ye?" "Oh, plenty," came the reply, the needles still plying, the dear face fixed on their movement. "Well, then, I guess before I eat I'll get a cup," and she covered the luncheon with the brown paper and passed down the aisle. During her brief absence several important incidents took place. First there came a jerk that felt for a moment like a head-on collision. This was a new locomotive, which had been sent to our relief, butting into the rear car. Then followed a rush of passengers, flower-pickers, mechanical engineers, scientists, sample-case man, and, last, the man with the dusting-brush whiskers. He paused for a moment, located his seat by his umbrella in the rack overhead, picked up the paper parcel, transferred it to the other seat, the one the woman in Brown had just left, tilted forward the back, and sat down. When he had settled himself and raised his head, the Woman in Brown stood over him looking into his eyes, an angry expression on her face. She held a cup of water in her hand. "My seat, ain't it?" he blurted out. "Yes, 'spec' it is," she snarled back, "long as you want it." And she gathered her skirts carefully, edged into the reduced space of her former seat, laid the cup of water on the sill of the window, and sat down as carefully as a hen adjusting herself to a nest, and, I thought, with precisely the same movement. A moment more and she leaned over the seat-back and said to the bewhiskered man: "Hand me that napkin and stuff, will ye?" The man moved his arm, picked up his newspaper, looked under it, and said: "It ain't here." "Well, I guess it is. I sot it there not more'n two minutes ago!" The man settled himself in his seat and began to read. "Look 'round there, will ye? Maybe it dropped on the floor." "It ain't on the floor. Guess I know a napkin when I see it." This came with some degree of positiveness. "Well, it ain't here. I left it right where you're a-sittin' when I went and got this water. You ain't eat it, hev ye?" She was still in her seat, her head twisted about, her face expressing every thought that crossed her mind. "No, I ain't eat it. I ain't no goat!" and the man buried his face in his paper. For him the incident was closed. Here there came a still small voice floating out from the lips of the Dear Old Lady, slowly, one word at a time: "Ain't you set on it?" "Set on it! _What!_" She was on her feet now, pulling her skirt around, craning her neck, her face getting whiter and whiter as the truth dawned upon her. "Oh, Lordy! Jes' look at it! However did I come to! Oh!"