I stepped forward and lifted it for her, and to my surprise found it very heavy. Then, as they thanked me, it occurred to me to offer to carry the bundle for them to the street car for which I supposed them bound. There was a little demur, and I added, "I am at Mrs. Kale's also. I have just come." This appeared to relieve one of them at least, but the other said, "Oh, but we are not going to the street car. We don't ride in street cars." "Yes; it is so unhealthy," said the younger one. "People catch all sorts of diseases on the car." Thinking them rather airy, I was about to hand the bundle back, but as I was going their way I offered to carry the bundles for both of them as far as I was going. This proved to be quite twenty blocks, for I could not in decency return the bundles. So we went on together, I feeling at heart rather ashamed to be lugging two large bundles through the streets for two very shabby-looking old women whose names I did not know. We soon, however, began to talk, and I drew out from them a good deal about Mrs. Kale and her kindness. Also, that they had seen much better days, to which one of them particularly was very fond of referring. It seemed that they had lived East--they carefully guarded the exact place--and had once had interests in a railroad which their father had built and largely owned. They were manifestly anxious to make this clearly understood. After his death they had lived on their dividends, until, on a sudden, the dividends had stopped. They found that the railroad with which their road connected had passed into new hands--had been "bought up" by a great syndicate, their lawyer had informed them, and refused any longer to make traffic arrangements with the road. This had destroyed the value of their property, but they had refused to sell their holdings at the low price offered--"As we probably ought to have done," sighed one of them. "Not at all! I am glad we didn't," asserted the other. "Well, sister, we got nothing--we lost everything, didn't we?" "I don't know. I am only glad that we held out. That man knows that he robbed us." "Well, that doesn't help us." "Yes, it does. It helps me to know that he knows it." "Who was it?" I asked. "Oh, there was a syndicate. I only know the names of two of them--a man named Argand, and a man named Canter. And our lawyer was named McSheen." Argand was a name which I recalled in connection with Mr. Poole's interest in the Railways in the case I have mentioned. "Well, you held on to your stock. You have it now, then?" I foresaw a possible law-case against Argand, and wondered if he was the owner of the Argand Estate, which I had already heard of twice since my arrival. "No," said one of them, "they bought up the stock of all the other people, and then they did something which cut us out entirely. What was it they did, sister?" "Reorganized."