What woke her?  Surely somebody laughed?  She started up:  the lecture was over at last; John, with a penitent face, was hastening back to her; the people who had sat nearest her were gone, and so were her gloves!

“What, in thunder—­” said John forcibly, looking at her face in blank amazement.

“Oh, I didn’t mind,” she answered mildly, thinking he was apologizing.  “I believe I have had a little nap, Jack, but I can’t find my gloves:  will you look under the next seat, please?”

“My dear child,” said John, shaking with suppressed laughter, “your face has ‘found your gloves’ with a vengeance!  It’s as black as—­anything.  Can’t you put your veil down till we get out of this?”

Obediently hiding her countenance, Marjory, bewildered and still not quite awake, followed John after a few minutes’ further and fruitless search for the missing gloves.

The brisk walk home through the frosty air restored her consciousness, and when John led her up to the looking-glass, kindly removing her veil at the same time, consciousness took the form of wrath.

“I never could have done all that myself,” she exclaimed indignantly.  “Why, I took those hateful gloves off, and put them on the cushion; and it is just my belief that one of those dreadful boys in front of us—­”

“Boys!” interrupted John.  “Those fellows were enough older than you—­or I either, for that matter.”

“I don’t care,” said Marjory, with tears of vexation in her brown eyes.  “They behaved like boys, for when I woke—­I mean just before you came for me—­I thought I heard somebody laugh, and then they were gone, and my gloves were gone too; and I just believe they managed to blacken my face somehow, and then stole my gloves.”

“If I thought that—­” exclaimed John savagely; and then added in a puzzled tone, “But how could they have done it, Peg, unless you were sleeping like a rock?”

“Well, I believe I was,” answered the young woman candidly, “for I was tired to death, and couldn’t understand half the gorilla said.”

“It was all my fault for dragging you there, and then leaving you,” said John, his penitence making him overlook this glaring disrespect to his hobby and its rider.  “But those fellows looked like gentlemen; and besides, I know who that old man was who sat next me, and I am sure he would not have let any such trick be played right under his nose without stopping it.”

“You can think what you please,” said Marjory, a little crossly, for her naturally good temper had been severely tried, “but nothing will ever make me believe it was not those boys.”

II.