stucco, look so primly respectable that you cannot help feeling ashamed of
yourself,--feeling as uncomfortable as when you have called too early on an
economically genteel couple, and been shown into a handsome drawing-room, on
a frosty day, without a fire. You cannot think of entering into a gossip
with the Railway guardian, for you remember that "sentinels on duty are not
allowed to talk," except to nursery maids.

Presently, hurrying on foot, a few passengers arrive; a servant-maid carrying
a big box, with the assistance of a little girl; a neat punctual-looking man,
probably a banker's clerk on furlough; and a couple of young fellows in
shaggy coats, smoking, who seem, by their red eyes and dirty hands, to have
made sure of being up early by not going to bed. A rattle announces the
first omnibus, with a pile of luggage outside and five inside passengers, two
commercial travellers, two who may be curates or schoolmasters, and a brown
man with a large sea-chest. At the quarter, the scene thickens; there are
few Hansoms, but some night cabs, a vast number of carts of all kinds, from
the costermonger's donkey to the dashing butcher's Whitechapel. There is
very little medium in parliamentary passengers about luggage, either they
have a cart-load or none at all. Children are very plentiful, and the
mothers are accompanied with large escorts of female relations, who keep
kissing and stuffing the children with real Gibraltar rock and gingerbread to
the last moment. Every now and then a well-dressed man hurries past into the
booking-office and takes his ticket with a sheepish air as if he was pawning
his watch. Sailors arrive with their chests and hammocks. The other day we
had the pleasure of meeting a travelling tinker with the instruments of his
craft neatly packed; two gentlemen, whose closely cropped hair and pale plump
complexion betokened a recent residence in some gaol or philanthropic
institution; an economical baronet, of large fortune; a prize fighter, going
down to arrange a little affair which was to come off the next day; a half-
pay officer, with a genteel wife and twelve children, on his way to a cheap