The night which she now looks back upon with most terror, perhaps, was the night when a director of the Cosmopolitan came on board. She was frightened almost beyond words when the tidy old gentleman nodded and smiled with a patronizing air. Did he mean to insult her? She just turned to the passenger opposite, and then, with her utmost courage, she turned to him, and said firmly, "Fare sir." "Fare? Why, my man, I am a director. I am Mr. Siebenhold." The passengers all grinned, as if to say not to know Mr. Siebenhold was to argue one's self unknown. Bertha had to collect all her powers. What would the stiffest martinet do in her place? She gulped down her terror. "I can't help that, sir. If you are a director, you have a director's pass, I suppose?" Magnificent instinct of a woman! For Bertha had never heard of a director's pass nor contemplated the exigency. "Pass?" said the great man. "Well, yes--pass? I suppose I have." And from the depths of an inside pocket a gigantic pocket-book appeared. From its depths, with just the least unnecessary display of greenbacks, a printed envelope appeared. From its depths a pink ticket, large and clean, appeared. "How will that do, my man?" For all Bertha could see, the pass might have been in Sanskrit. Her eyes, indeed, were beginning to brim over. But she walked to the light, looked at the pass, said "All right" as she gave it back, and took out her own note-book to enter the free passenger. "You've not been long on the line?" said the old gentleman fussily. "Not very long, sir." "Well, my lad"--more fussily--"you have done perfectly right--perfectly. I hope all the conductors are as careful. I shall name you to Mr. Beal. What is your number?" Bertha pointed to her jaunty cap, and said "537" at the same moment. The old gentleman took down the number, and did not forget his promise. The next day he talked to the superintendent an hour, to that worthy's great disgust. When Mr. Siebenhold left the office at last, the superintendent said to the cashier, "The old fool wanted 'to recommend No. 537.' I did not tell him that we only have three hundred and thirty men." So Bertha passed her worst trial, as she thought it then. But a harder test was in store. CHAPTER VI. YOUR UNCLE. The baby was growing to be no baby. She was big enough to run about the floor, and if they had a boiled chicken for dinner, the little girl sucked and even gnawed at the bones. The autumn had gone, and Bertha had a long winter ulster to do her cold work in, and Max a longer and a heavier one for his. Still, neither of them flinched. Max did not like his work as well as he liked covering piano-forte hammers, but he liked it better than nothing. And Bertha liked to be out of debt, and to see Max happy. So never did she ask him to drop a trip, and never did he ask her.