"No, she isn't any relation--just Ben Mulford's girl." He raised his other hand and pressed the child's head down upon the deerskin waistcoat, close into the fur, with infinite tenderness. The child reached up her small, chapped hand and laid it on his cheek, cuddling closer, a shy, satisfied smile overspreading her face. My topics were exhausted, and we rode on in silence, he sitting in front of me, his eyes now so completely hidden in the shadow of his broad-brimmed hat that I only knew they were fixed on me when some sudden tilt of the stage threw the light full on his face. I tried offering him a cigar, but he would not smoke--"had gotten out of the habit of it," he said, "being shut up so long. It didn't taste good to him, so he had given it up." When the stage reached the crossing near the college gate and stopped, he asked quietly:-- "You get out here?" and lifted the child as he spoke so that her soiled shoes would not scrape my coat. In the action I saw that his leg pained him, for he bent it suddenly and put his hand on the kneecap. "I hope your mother will be better," I said. "Good-night; good-night, little girl." "Thank you; good-night," he answered quickly, with a strain of sadness that I had not caught before. The child raised her eyes to mine, but did not speak. I mounted the hill to the big college building, and stopped under a light to look back; following with my eyes the stage on its way to the station. The child was on her knees, looking at me out of the window and waving her hand, but the man sat by the lamp, his head on his chest. * * * * * All through my discourse the picture of that keen-eyed, handsome young fellow, with his pointed beard and picturesque deerskin waistcoat, the little child cuddled down upon his breast, kept coming before me. When I had finished, and was putting on my coat in the president's room,--the landlord had sent his team to bring me back,--I asked one of the professors, a dry, crackling, sandy-haired professor, with bulging eyes and watch-crystal spectacles, if he knew of a man by the name of Sands who had lived in Hell's Diggings with his mother, and who had served two terms in state's prison, and I related my experience in the stage, telling him of the impression his face and bearing had made upon me, and of his tenderness to the child beside him. "No, my dear sir, I never heard of him. Hell's Diggings is a most unsafe and unsavory locality. I would advise you to be very careful in returning. The rogue will probably be lying in wait to rob you of your fee;" and he laughed a little harsh laugh that sounded as if some one had suddenly torn a coarse rag. "But the child with him," I said; "he seemed to love her."