“Yes; they sailed for Liverpool a few days ago, I am sorry to say, on my own account.” “How do you and Reba get on?” Larkins shrugged his shoulders and made no reply. “And, by the way, how came you down here? Whom did you expect to meet?” “Not you, certainly, old chap; though I am deuced glad to see you. I came to meet the _mater_, who was to have arrived by this train from Washington, only she didn’t come—she never does. I’m used to it. I shall find a tel. when I get back to Sixty-second Street.” “Here’s my carriage now. Good-by, Larkins. Call and see me at the Star to-morrow.” “Thank you. By-by.” The friends parted. Hanson went to the carriage. Larkins waved his hand and walked off. The hackman jumped down from his box and opened the door for his fare. Hanson entered, and laid the child down on the cushion on the front seat, and sank down into the back one with a sigh of relief. The child had become a burden, and he had not been accustomed to heavy burdens. He was very tired. “Where, sir?” inquired Jehu. “First, take these checks and go to the baggage car and get my valise and hatbox; and don’t be half so long about it as you were in bringing up the carriage,” said Hanson. “So many vehicles ahead of me, sir, couldn’t get here any sooner,” said the man, as he took the credentials and darted off as swift as Jove’s Mercury. He soon came back with the properties, which he piled up on his own seat, not to incommode the inside passengers. Then he came around to the door and inquired: “Where, sir?” “To the Star.” Jehu closed the door, sprang to his seat, and started his horses. Twenty minutes’ rapid drive brought them to the “Star.” It was now about a quarter to twelve o’clock. Leaving the child sleeping on the cushions, and telling the hackman to wait, Hanson went into the office and inquired if he could engage a large bedroom for himself, with a small one communicating with it for his little ward, a child between five and six years of age. He could, on the third floor front, was the answer he received. Having registered his name—William Hanson, of New York, and ward—he returned to the carriage, attended by two porters, one of whom took his valise and hatbox, and the other the sleeping child. Hanson paid and discharged the hack, and then followed the porters into the house—first into the reception room, and then by the elevator to the third story, where he was shown into his small suit of two rooms. One porter set the luggage down on the floor, and the other laid the sleeping child down on the bed. Hanson “tipped” them both, and dismissed them. Then he turned up the gas, and went to look at his poor little charge. A change had come over her. Her face was flushed, her skin was hot and dry, her lips parched, her pulse quick, and her breathing short.