face in a soft, white hood.  The face of the baby looked like an epitome of weary, even vicious, heredity.  He looked older than his mother.  Now and then she bent, and her severe face took on an expression of majestic tenderness.  She pressed her handsome face close to the little, elfish, even evil face of the child, and kissed it.  Then the baby smiled a fatuous, toothless smile, and he also was transformed; his little glory of infancy seemed to illuminate the face marked with the labors and sins and degradation of his progenitors.  The other Hungarian woman, who had with her one child, older than the baby, very large and heavy, caught it up and kissed it with fervor, and the child stared at her in return with a sort of patient wonder.  Then the two women exchanged smiles of confidence.  Carroll watched, remembering Amy with their children.  She had been very charming with the children, and, after all, there was not such a difference as might appear at first.  The thought flashed into Carroll’s mind that here was a little, universal well-spring of human nature which was good to see, but the deadly pessimism and despair of his own mood made him straightway corrupt the spring with his own dark conclusions.

“What is it all for?” he asked himself, bitterly.  “Look at the handsome alien creature there, with four young around her, and the other with that unresponsive little brat.  Any one of those children, from the looks of their faces, is capable, if left to its own unguided proclivities, of murdering the very parent who is now caressing him; any one of them is hardly capable of doing anything in life for his own good or happiness, or the good and happiness of the world, if left to himself, as he will be.  What does either of those women know about training a child with those features, a child distorted from birth?”

Beyond Carroll, on the same seat, sat two quite pretty young girls with smart hats, and protuberant pompadours over pink-and-white faces.  They had loosened their coats, revealing coquettish neckwear.  They sat with feet crossed, displaying embroidered petticoats, at which now and then the Hungarian women glanced with the hopeless admiration with which one might view crown jewels.  The two girls covertly now and then reached forward their pretty heads and regarded Carroll with half-bold, half-innocent coquettishness, but he did not notice it.  One whispered to the other how handsome he was, and did she know who he was.

A rumble and jar became audible, and the New Sanderson car came up at right angles on the track on the other road.  The two cars connected.  Then passengers alighted from the New Sanderson car and entered the waiting one.  There was a distinct stir of excitement as they entered, for it was evidently a bridal party.  They were all Hungarians, and on their way to Port Willis for the ceremony.  There were the prospective bride and groom and several friends of both sexes.  They settled themselves in the car, the girls huddled