It was growing dusk as the boat touched the pier. So dim was the light, that Mr. Hammond was obliged to station himself close beside the gangway, and inspect the features of each lady passenger more narrowly than politeness would, in other circumstances, have warranted. They hurried across, men and women, tall and short, stout and slender, until there tripped towards him the figure of a young girl, attired in a gray dress and mantle, and carrying a small traveling bag in her hand. She would have passed him, had he not stepped forward and spoken. "Miss Hunt, I believe!" In the uncertain twilight, he could see that she grew very pale. "How is my father?" There was no preamble of civility or diffidence; no reserve in addressing him, a mere stranger; no trembling, preparatory queries; but a point-blank question, in a tone whose impatient anguish moved his kind heart; a piercing look, that would know the truth then and there! "He is better, to-day"--and he led her out of the press of the onward stream. "He has not been dangerously ill. We hope and believe that he will not be." "Is that true?" Her fingers tightened upon his arm. "It is! I would not, for the world, deceive you in such a matter." "I believe you! Thank Heaven! I feared the worst!" She covered her face with her hands, and burst into tears. Hammond beckoned a hackman, close by, and when the short-lived reaction of overwrought feeling subsided so far as to allow Sarah to notice surrounding objects, she was seated in the carriage, screened from curious or impertinent gazers, and her escort was nowhere to be seen. Several minutes elapsed before he again showed himself at the window. "I must trouble you for your checks, Miss Hunt, in order to get your baggage." Already ashamed of her emotion, she obeyed his demand without speaking. "You have given me but one," he said, turning it over in his hand. "That is all, sir." "Indeed! You are a model traveler! I thought no young lady, in these days, ever stirred from home without half a dozen trunks." To himself he added, "A sensible girl! An exception to most of her sex, in one thing, at any rate!" Sarah sat well back into her corner, as they drove up lighted Broadway, and was almost rudely taciturn, while her companion related the particulars of her father's seizure and subsequent confinement to his room. Yet, that she listened with intense interest, the narrator knew by her irregular breathing and immovable attitude. As they neared their destination, this fixedness of attention and posture was exchanged for an eager restlessness. She leaned forward to look out of the window, and when they turned into the last street, quick as was Mr. Hammond's motion to unfasten the door of the vehicle, her hand was first upon the lock. It was cold as ice, and trembled so much as to be powerless. Gently removing it, he undid the catch, and assisted her to alight.