To the musing or drowsy traveller by rail how space and time are annihilated! He is barely conscious of progress, only when the brakeman with measured tone shouts the name of the station; he looks up from his paper or rouses from his doze, looks out at the cheerless prospect, and then settles himself for another thirty miles. Time passes as unobserved as the meadows or bushy pastures that flit by the jarring window at his ear. But with Greenleaf, the reader will believe, the case was far different. He had never noticed before how slowly the locomotives really moved. At each station where wood and water were to be taken, it seemed to him the delay was interminable. His eager desire shot along the track like electricity; and when at last he reached the place where he was to leave the train, he had gone through a year of ordinary hopes and fears. He mounted the stage-box and took his seat beside the buffalo-clad, coarse-bearded, and grim driver. The road lay through a hilly country, with many romantic views on either hand. It was late in the season to see the full glories of autumn; but the trees were not yet bare, and in many places the contrasts of color were exquisite. For once the driver found his match; he had a passenger as taciturn as himself. For the first few miles not a word was spoken, saving a few brief threats to the horses; but at last Jehu could hold out no longer; his reputation was in danger, if he allowed any one to be more silent than himself, and he cautiously commenced a skirmish. "From Boston?" A nod was the only reply. "Belong about here?" "No," with a shake of the head. "Ben up here afore, though, I guess?" "Yes." "Thought I remembered. Year or so ago?" "Yes." "Had a great white cotton umbrill, a box like a shoe-kit, and suthin' like a pair o' clo'es-frames?" Greenleaf could but smile at the description of his easel and artist's outfit; still he contented himself with a brief assent. "Keeps tight as the bark to a white-oak," muttered Jehu to himself. "Guess I'll try him on t'other side, seein' he's so offish." Then aloud,-- "Knowed Square Lee, I b'lieve?" "Yes," thundered Greenleaf, looking furiously at the questioner. The glance frightened Jehu's soul from the red-curtained windows, where it had been peeping out, back to its hiding-place, wherever that might be. "Well, yer needn't bite a feller's head off," muttered he, in the same undertone as before. "And if ye want to keep to yerself, shet up yer darned oyster-shell, and see how much you make by it. Not more'n four and sixpence, I guess. Maybe you'll come back 'bout's wise as ye come." Thenceforward, Buffalo-coat was grim; his admonitions to the horses were a trifle more emphatic; once he whistled a fragment of a minor stave, but spoke not a word till the coach reached the tavern-door. "You can drive to Mr. Lee's house," said Greenleaf.