The other was a girl--one of the prettiest little girls I have ever seen. I was not--and am not--an expert on children’s ages, but I put her down as four years old. She was a plump and well-proportioned child, with an abundance of brown hair, solemn grey eyes, and a friendly smile. She sat curled up on the seat, leaning her head against her mother’s arm, an oasis of contentment and neatness in that dusty railway carriage; and I felt dimly conscious that in due time I should like to possess a little girl of my own like that. At present she was engaged in industriously staring The Freak out of countenance. The Freak, not at all embarrassed, smiled back at her. Miss Welwyn broke into an unmaidenly chuckle, and her father put down "The Morning Post." "Why this hilarity, my daughter?" he enquired. The little girl, who was apparently accustomed to academically long words, indicated The Freak with a little nod of her head. "I like that boy," she said frankly. "Not the other. Too big!" "Baby _dearie_, don’t talk so!" exclaimed Mrs. Welwyn, highly scandalised. "I apologise for my daughter’s lack of reserve--and discrimination," said Mr. Welwyn to me, courteously. "She will not be so sincere and unaffected in twenty years’ time, I am afraid. Are you gentlemen going home for the holidays?" I entered into conversation with him, in the course of which I learned that he was a member of the University, off on vacation. He did not tell me his College. "Do you get long holi--vacations, sir, at Cambridge?" I asked. "When do you have to be back?" Youth is not usually observant, but on this occasion even my untutored faculties informed me that Mr. Welwyn was looking suddenly older. "I am not going back," he said briefly. Then he smiled, a little mechanically, and initiated a discussion on compound locomotives. Presently his attention was caught by some occurrence at the other end of the compartment. He laughed. "My daughter appears to be pressing her companionship upon your friend with a distressing lack of modesty," he said. I turned. The Freak had installed his admirer in the corner-seat beside him, and, having found paper and pencil, was engaged in turning out masterpieces of art at her behest. With a flat suitcase for a desk, he was executing--so far as the Great Eastern Railway would permit him--a portrait of Miss Welwyn herself; his model, pleasantly thrilled, affectionately clasping one of his arms in both of hers and breathing heavily through her small nose, which she held about six inches from the paper. Finally the likeness was completed and presented. "Now draw a cow," said Miss Welwyn immediately. The Freak meekly set to work again. Then came the inevitable question. "What’s her name?" The artist considered. "Sylvia," he said at length. Sylvia, I knew, was the name of his sister. "Not like that name!" said the child, more prophetically than she knew.