she was to launch herself late at night.  She considered that she knew absolutely nothing about the hotels.  She even remembered, vaguely, having heard that no unattended woman was admitted to one, and then she had no baggage except her little satchel.  She glanced at herself in the little glass beside her seat, and her pretty face all at once occurred to her as being a great danger rather than an advantage.  Now she wished for her aunt Maria’s face instead of her own.  She imagined that Aunt Maria might have no difficulty even under the same adverse circumstances.  She looked years younger than she was.  She thought for a moment of going into the lavatory and rearranging her hair, with a view to making herself look plain and old, as she had done before, but she recalled the enormous change it had made in her appearance, and she was afraid to do that lest it should seem a suspicious circumstance to the conductors and her fellow-passengers.  She glanced across the aisle at the dwarf woman, and their eyes met, and suddenly a curious sort of feeling of kinship came over the girl.  Here was another woman outside the pale of ordinary life by physical conditions, as she herself was by spiritual ones.  The dwarf’s eyes looked fairly angelic and heavenly to her.  She saw her speak in a whisper to her maid, and the woman immediately arose and came to her.

“Miss Blair wishes me to ask if you will be so kind as to go and speak to her; she has something which she wishes to say to you,” she said, in the same parrot-like fashion.

Maria arose at once, and crossed the aisle and seated herself in the chair which the maid vacated.  The maid took Maria’s at a nod from her mistress.

The little woman looked at Maria for a moment with her keen, kind eyes and her peculiar smile deepened.  Then she spoke.  “What is the matter?” she asked.

Maria hesitated.

The dwarf looked across at her maid.  “She will not understand anything you say,” she remarked.  “She is well trained.  She can hear without hearing—­that is her great accomplishment.”

Still Maria said nothing.

“You got on at Amity,” said the dwarf.  “Is that where you live?”

“Yes.”

“What is your name?”

Maria closed her mouth firmly.

The dwarf laughed.  “Oh, very well,” said she.  “If you do not choose to tell it, I can.  Your name is Ackley—­Elizabeth Ackley.  I am glad to meet you, Miss Ackley.”

Maria paled a little, but she said nothing to disapprove this extraordinary statement.

“My name is Blair—­Miss Rosa Blair,” said the dwarf.  “I am a rose, but I happened to bloom outside the pale.”  She laughed gayly, but Maria’s eyes upon her were pitiful.  “You are also outside the pale in some way,” said Miss Blair.  “I always know such people when I meet them.  There is an affinity between them and myself.  The moment I saw you I said to myself:  she also is outside the pale, she also has escaped from the garden of life.  Well, never mind, child; it is not so very bad outside when one becomes accustomed to it.  I am.  Perhaps you have not had time; but you will have.  What is the matter?”