the sense of safety glow over her in delicious warmth and ease. Through all the night, even when she slept, at every movement he made, her soft fingers closed more firmly upon his hand. It was the child’s anchor of safety; and this clinging, conscious and unconscious, went straight to Geoff’s heart. In the dark, under the waning light of the lamp overhead, he watched the little face sinking into sleep, with now a faint little smile upon it--a complete relaxation of all the strained muscles--with a sensation of happiness which was beyond words. Sometimes, for the mere pleasure of it, he would make a movement wantonly to feel the renewed clasp of the little hand and see the drowsy opening of the eyes. “Are you there, Mr. Geoff?” she said now and then, with a voice as soft (he thought) as the coo of a dove. “Yes, my Lily;” he would say, with his heart swelling in his young bosom; and Lilias would drop to sleep again, smiling at him, with sleepy eyes, in what ease and infinite content! As for Nello, he snored now and then out of very satisfaction and slumbering confidence; little snores, something between a little cherub’s trumpet and the native utterance of the tenderest of little pigs--at that age when even little piggies, by reason of babyhood, have something cherubic about them too. At midnight, at the great junction, a tall, sunburnt, anxious-faced man walked along the line of carriages, looking in with eager looks. “Are these your children?” he said to Geoff, seeing the two little figures laid up among the cushions, and not remarking how young their companion was. He spoke abruptly, but taking off his hat with an apologetic grace, which Geoff thought “foreign,” as we are all so apt to suppose unusual courtesy to be. A sudden inspiration seized the young man. He did not know who this was, but somehow he never doubted who it was the stranger sought. “They are the little Musgraves of Penninghame,” he said, simply, “whom I am taking home.” The tall stranger wavered for a moment, as though he might have fallen; then, in a voice half-choked, he asked, “May I come beside you?” He sat down in the seat opposite to Geoff. After an anxious inspection of the two little faces, now settled into profound sleep, “Thank God!” he said. “They are all I have in the world.” Who could it be? Geoff’s ears seemed to tingle with the words--“all I have in the world.” He sat in his dark corner and gazed at this strange new-comer, who was more in the light. And the new-comer gazed at him. Seeing, after a while, the child’s hand clasped in his--a mark of trust which, sweet as it was, kept young Geoff in a somewhat forced attitude not comfortable for a long night journey,--“I do not know you,” he said, “but my little girl seems to put her whole trust in you, and that must make me your grateful servant too.”