The first fifty miles of Marian's journey was unmarked by anything of special interest. This brought her to the junction where she was to change cars for the main line. But there, to her dismay, she discovered that the train with which she was supposed to connect had been gone for an hour, her own train being late. There was nothing to be done but to wait at a forlorn little hotel for the next one, which would not be until noon of the next day. It was of no use to feel provoked, or to fret, so Marian set herself to bear it patiently. She walked about the small village, and on into the country, made the acquaintance of children gathering Christmas greens, and returned with her hands full of evergreen and bitter-sweet berries. The time did not hang so heavily as she had anticipated, although she was heartily glad when the long train glided in, and she was once more seated in the car, and on her homeward way. As it was to be a long journey, she was not a little interested in her surroundings. So she began to scrutinize her fellow-passengers, to measure, and classify, and determine, by those few swift glances, their standing—mental, social and moral—and whether they were agreeable, or selfish and ill-natured. She reached her conclusions—unjust ones in some instances, perhaps; and yet the intuitions of some fine natures are a little short of divine. When she wearied of that, she brought out pencil and paper, and scribbled a voluminous letter to Aunt Ruth. Having a talent for sketching, she embellished her sheet here and there with portraits of her fellow-travellers, "to cheer up Auntie," she told herself, albeit the artist seemed to enjoy her work immensely, and to put a deal of painstaking into it. There was a scornful big woman with a pug-nosed dog, a laughing baby, a great pompous man asleep with his mouth open, the sweet face of an old lady biding away under a deep bonnet, and at last, with careful touches, the profile of a young man who sat just ahead of her; a fine scholarly face, bent over a book. That letter made two old people happy for more than one evening. What if our cheery words went oftener to brighten lonely homes!