Luclarion came at last to live with Mrs. Edward Shiere. And in that
household, at eight and twenty, we have just found her.




III.

BY STORY-RAIL: TWENTY-SIX YEARS AN HOUR.


Laura Shiere did not think much about the "stump," when, in her dark
gray merino travelling dress, and her black ribbons, nicely
appointed, as Mrs. Oferr's niece should be, down to her black kid
gloves and broad-hemmed pocket-handkerchief, and little black straw
travelling-basket (for morocco bags were not yet in those days), she
stepped into the train with her aunt at the Providence Station, on
her way to Stonington and New York.

The world seemed easily laid out before her. She was like a cousin
in a story-book, going to arrive presently at a new home, and begin
a new life, in which she would be very interesting to herself and to
those about her. She felt rather important, too, with her money
independence--there being really "property" of hers to be spoken of
as she had heard it of late. She had her mother's diamond ring on
her third finger, and was comfortably conscious of it when she drew
off her left-hand glove. Laura Shiere's nature had only been
stirred, as yet, a very little below the surface, and the surface
rippled pleasantly in the sunlight that was breaking forth from the