enduring gratitude. Keep me informed of your address.'

Humplebee made no second application, and Leonard Chadwick did not again
break silence.

The years flowed on. At five-and-twenty Humplebee toiled in the same
office, but he could congratulate himself on a certain progress; by dogged
resolve he had acquired something like efficiency in the duties of a
commercial clerk, and the salary he now earned allowed him to contribute to
the support of his mother. More or less reconciled to the day's labour, he
had resumed in leisure hours his favourite study; a free library supplied
him with useful books, and whenever it was possible he went his way into
the fields, searching, collecting, observing. But his life had another
interest, which threatened rivalry to this intellectual pursuit. Humplebee
had set eyes upon the maiden destined to be his heart's desire; she was the
daughter of a fellow-clerk, a man who had grown grey in service of the
ledger; timidly he sought to win her kindness, as yet scarce daring to
hope, dreaming only of some happy change of position which might encourage
him to speak. The girl was as timid as himself; she had a face of homely
prettiness, a mind uncultured but sympathetic; absorbed in domestic cares,
with few acquaintances, she led the simplest of lives, and would have been
all but content to live on in gentle hope for a score of years. The two
were beginning to understand each other, for their silence was more
eloquent than their speech.

One summer day--the last day of his brief holiday--Humplebee was returning
by train from a visit to his mother. Alone in a third-class carriage,
seeming to read a newspaper, but in truth dreaming of a face he hoped to
see in a few hours, he suddenly found himself jerked out of his seat, flung
violently forward, bumped on the floor, and last of all rolled into a sort