with an intolerable sense of desolation and utter isolation in the
midst of hundreds of her own race, who were too entirely absorbed in
their individual speculations, fears and aims, to spare even a
glance at that solitary young mariner, who saw the last headland
fade from view, and found herself, with no pilot but ambition,
drifting rapidly out on the great, unknown, treacherous Sea of Life,
strewn with mournful human wrecks, whom the charts and buoys of six
thousand years of navigation could not guide to a haven of
usefulness and peace. Interminable seemed the dreary day, which
finally drew to a close, and Edna, who was weary of her cramped
position, laid her aching head on the window-sill, and watched the
red light of day die in the west, where a young moon hung her
silvery crescent among the dusky tree-tops, and the stars flashed
out thick and fast. Far away among strangers, uncared for and
unnoticed, come what might, she felt that God's changeless stars
smiled down as lovingly upon her face as on her grandfather's grave;
and that the cosmopolitan language of nature knew neither the
modifications of time and space, the distinctions of social caste,
nor the limitations of national dialects.

As the night wore on, she opened the cherished copy of Dante and
tried to read, but the print was too fine for the dim lamp which
hung at some distance from her corner. Her head ached violently,
and, as sleep was impossible, she put the book back in her pocket,
and watched the flitting trees and fences, rocky banks, and
occasional houses, which seemed weird in the darkness. As silence
deepened in the car, her sense of loneliness became more and more
painful, and finally she turned and pressed her cheek against the
fair, chubby hand of a baby, who slept with its curly head on its
mother's shoulder, and its little dimpled arm and hand hanging over