out of the coach window.

'Mr. Falkirk' (sotto voce), 'you are charming!--Between
ourselves, this is a hard place to keep gracefully. Please
take out your watch, sir.'

Which Mr. Falkirk did, and silently showed it. Forth to meet
his came a little gold hunting watch from behind the brown
veil.

'You are a minute slow, sir--as usual.' Then very softly,--'Mr.
Falkirk, what with being pressed and repressed, I am dying by
quarter inches! Just introduce me for your grandmother, will
you, and I will matronize the party.'

A request Mr. Falkirk complied with by entering forthwith into
a long business discussion with another occupant of the stage
coach, also known to him; in which stocks, commercial
regulations, political enterprises, and the relative bearings
of the same, precluded all reference to anything else
whatever. Nobody's grandmother could have had less (visible)
attention than Miss Hazel, up to the time when the coach
rolled up to the door of a wayside inn, and the party got out
to a luncheon or early dinner, as some of them would have
called it. Then indeed she had enough. Mr. Falkirk handed her
out and handed her in; straight to the gay carpeted "Ladies'
room;" shut the door carefully, and asked her what she would
have. No other lady was there to dispute possession.

'Only a broiled chicken, sir--and a soufflé--and potatoes à la