hollow, bound like himself, for the London Express. Edgar walked up naturally, mechanically to the window at which firstclass tickets were being issued. But while he waited his turn, his eye and his ear were attracted by a couple of women in the dress of an English Sisterhood, who were standing in front of him, holding a close conversation. One of them, at least, was in the nun’s costume of severe black and white; the other, a young slim figure, wore a black cloak and close bonnet, and was deeply veiled; but was not a “Sister,” though in dress closely approaching the garb. Edgar’s eyes however were not clever enough to make out this difference. The younger one seemed to him to have made some timid objection to the second class. “Second class, my dear!” said the elder. “I understand first class, and I understand third; but second is neither one thing nor another. No, my dear. If we profess to give up forms and ceremonies and the pomps of this world, let us do it thoroughly, or not at all. If you take second class, you will be put in with your friend’s maid and footman. No, no, no; third class is the thing.” “To be sure. What am I thinking of?” said Edgar to himself, with his habitual smile. “Of course, third class is the thing.” It had been from pure inadvertence that he had been about to take the most expensive place, nothing else having occurred to him. I do not know whether I can make the reader understand how entirely without bitterness, and, indeed, with how much amusement Edgar contemplated himself in his downfall and penniless condition, and what a joke he found it. For the moment rather a good joke--for, indeed, he had suffered nothing, his _amour propre_ not being any way involved, and no immediate want of a five-pound note or a shilling having yet happened to him to ruffle his composure. He kept the two Sisters in sight as he went down the long stairs to the railway with his third-class ticket. He thought it possible that they might be exposed to some annoyance, two women in so strange a garb, and in a country where Sisterhoods have not yet developed, and where the rudeness of the vulgar is doubly rude, perhaps in contrast with, perhaps in consequence of (who knows?) the general higher level of education on which we Scotch plume ourselves. They had given him his first lesson in practical contempt of the world; he would give them the protection of his presence, at least, in case of any annoyance. Not to give them any reason, however, to suppose that he was following them, he waited for some minutes before he took his seat in a corner of the same carriage in which they had established themselves. He took off his hat, foreign fashion, as he went into the railway carriage (Edgar had many foreign fashions). At sight of him there seemed a little flutter of interest between the Sisters, and when he took his seat they bent their heads together, and talked long in whispers. The result of this was that the two changed seats, the younger