He lighted another cigar and smoked it out. Then he composed himself for a doze, while the train sped on from Philadelphia to New York. It was half-past ten o’clock when the train ran into the depot at Jersey City. Hanson lifted the sleeping child in his arms, arranged her dress, put on her hat, and laid her head over his shoulders, saying to himself: “Now, I wonder what my yachting and sporting friends would think if they could see me here playing nursemaid to a young child.” He laughed at the conceit as he stepped off the train and passed along the platform, mingling with the crowd hurrying to the ferryboat. He hurried onto the boat and into the saloon, where he found a seat in the most shady part of a well-lighted place. He sat down, laid the child across his knees and looked with some uneasiness into her sleeping face, when, to his dismay, she opened her great, solemn, brown eyes and looked at him. But there was no “speculation” in her gaze, and, with a weary sigh, she closed her eyes again and relapsed into slumber. When the crowd of passengers had all found seats and leisure to look about them, several people, mostly women, noticed the young man with the sleeping child on his knees, a rather unusual sight. “Look at that young father with his child on his lap. See how tender he is of her, how careful not to wake her,” said one woman to another. “Yes; but where is the mother? There doesn’t seem to be anybody with him,” said her companion. “Oh,” replied the first speaker, lowering her voice, “don’t you see, the poor young fellow is in black?” “That’s nothing. So many men wear black. It is so becoming, you know,” said the second speaker. “Yes; but the child is in black, too. Little girls don’t wear black frocks unless they are in mourning.” “Oh, yes. I see. That’s so. Poor things. I’m sorry for both.” Hanson overheard the whole conversation between the two women, their penetrating whispers rather more distinctly than their normal tones. And he smiled at their inferences. Yet he was not very easy in his mind, either. He was very much in dread of meeting some acquaintance, especially some young sporting man, who, recognizing him, and finding him in his present occupation, after so mysterious a disappearance and so long an absence, might embarrass him with questions or vex him with “chaff.” A little later that was just what happened. The ferryboat touched the pier at the foot of Cortlandt Street, and some people came on board to meet friends who were arriving by it. Hanson recognized a few of his acquaintances among them, but, fortunately, they all seemed too much engaged in searching out and welcoming friends whom they had come to meet, to take any notice of him. Carrying the child in his arms, Hanson left the boat with the crowd and stood in the midst of another crowd—a vociferous crowd of hackmen and hotel drummers.