The girl made several beginnings at an answer, stopped, looked out of the window, looked down at her shoe-tip, and finally burst into her little clear trill of amusement. "I don't," she said, looking full at Rankin, her eyes shining. "You've caught me! I can't remember a single time in my day when I think about anything but hurrying to get dressed in time to be at the next party promptly. Maybe some folks can think when they're hurrying to get dressed, but I can't." Rankin was very little moved to hilarity by this statement, but he was too young to resist the contagion of Lydia's mirth, and laughed back at her, wondering at the mobility of her ever-changing face. "If you don't think, what do you _do_?" he interrogated with mock relentlessness. "Nothing," said Lydia recklessly, still laughing. "What do you feel?" he went on in the same tone, but Lydia's face changed quickly. "Oh--lots!" she said uncertainly, and was silent. The car began to pass some poor, small houses, and in a moment came to a standstill in the midst of a straggling village. The young conductor still slept on, his head fallen so far on his shoulder that his breathing was difficult. The motorman, getting no signal to go on, looked back through the window, putting his face close to the glass to see, for it had grown dusky outside and the electric lights were not yet turned on. After a look at the sleeping man he glanced apprehensively at the two passengers, and then, apparently reassured that they were not "company detectives," he pushed open the door. "This is Wardsboro'," he told them as he went down the aisle, "and the next stop is Hardville." He was a strong, burly man, and easily lifted the slight, boyish form of the conductor to a more comfortable position, propping him up in a corner of the seat. The young man did not waken, but his face relaxed into peaceful lines of unconsciousness as his head fell back, and his breathing became long and regular, like a sleeping child's. As the big motorman went back to his post, he explained a little sheepishly to the two, who had watched his operation in attentive silence, "It's against the rules, I know, but there ain't anybody but you two here, and he don't look as though he'd really got his growth yet. I got a boy ain't sixteen that looks as old as he does, and ruggeder at that. I reckon the long hours are too much for him." "Do you know him?" asked Rankin. The motorman turned his red, weather-beaten face to them from the doorway where he stood, pulling on his clumsy gloves. "Who, me?" he asked. "No; I never seen him till to-day. He's a new hand, I reckon." He drew the door after him with a rattling slam, rang the bell for himself, and started the car forward. In the warm, vibrating solitude of the car, the two young people looked at each other in a silent transport. Lydia's dark eyes were glistening, and she checked Rankin, about to speak, with a quick, broken "No; don't say a word! You'd spoil it!"