“Well, we are travelling third for once, and the money is saved, or at least it is ready to spend again at the first opportunity. The man didn't wish to exchange the tickets at all. He says it is never done. I told him they were bought by a very inexperienced American lady (that is you, Salemina) who knew almost nothing of the distinctions between first and third class, and naturally took the best, believing it to be none too good for a citizen of the greatest republic on the face of the earth. He said the tickets had been stamped on. I said so should I be if I returned without exchanging them. He was a very dense person, and didn't see my joke at all, but then, it is true, there were thirteen men in line behind me, with the train starting in three minutes, and there is nothing so debilitating to a naturally weak sense of humour as selling tickets behind a grating, so I am not really vexed with him. There! we are quite comfortable, pending the arrival of the babies, the dog, and the fish, and certainly no vendor of periodic literature will dare approach us while we keep these books in evidence.” She had Laurence Hutton's Literary Landmarks and Royal Edinburgh, by Mrs. Oliphant; I had Lord Cockburn's Memorials of his Time; and somebody had given Salemina, at the moment of leaving London, a work on 'Scotias's darling seat,' in three huge volumes. When all this printed matter was heaped on the top of Salemina's hold-all on the platform, the guard had asked, “Do you belong to these books, ma'am?” “We may consider ourselves injured in going from London to Edinburgh in a third-class carriage in eight or ten hours, but listen to this,” said Salemina, who had opened one of her large volumes at random when the train started. “'The Edinburgh and London Stage-coach begins on Monday, 13th October 1712. All that desire... let them repair to the Coach and Horses at the head of the Canongate every Saturday, or the Black Swan in Holborn every other Monday, at both of which places they may be received in a coach which performs the whole journey in thirteen days without any stoppage (if God permits) having eighty able horses. Each passenger paying 4 pounds, 10 shillings for the whole journey, allowing each 20 lbs. weight and all above to pay 6 pence per lb. The coach sets off at six in the morning' (you could never have caught it, Francesca!), 'and is performed by Henry Harrison.' And here is a 'modern improvement,' forty-two years later. In July 1754, the Edinburgh Courant advertises the stage-coach drawn by six horses, with a postilion on one of the leaders, as a 'new, genteel, two-end glass machine, hung on steel springs, exceedingly light and easy, to go in ten days in summer and twelve in winter. Passengers to pay as usual. Performed (if God permits) by your dutiful servant, Hosea Eastgate. CARE IS TAKEN OF SMALL PARCELS ACCORDING TO THEIR VALUE.'”