I murmured my thanks to Mr. Bovyer, and withdrew the hand he was still holding.

When we were at last alone, Mrs. Flaxman drew her chair near the fire and settling back comfortably as if she were in no hurry to retire, said very seriously:—­“This is unexpected—­our going home to-morrow.”

“I am afraid Bovyer is about making an ass of himself.  Strange what weaknesses come over strong men sometimes!  He was the last I should have expected such a thing from,” Mr. Winthrop said.

“Was it fear of this that sends you home so abruptly?” Mrs. Flaxman asked, with a look of amusement.

“One reason.”

“He would be a very good parti; only a little too old, perhaps.”

“What are you thinking of?  I shall not let that child get entangled for years.”  He said, almost angrily.

“What has Mr. Bovyer done?” I inquired, a good deal mystified.

“You are too young to have everything explained.  I want you to keep your child’s heart for a good many years yet.”

“What a pity young people cannot keep the child’s heart until they get some good out of life.  Not begin at once with its storms and passions,” Mrs. Flaxman remarked, in a moralizing tone.

“Do you mean falling in love, Mrs. Flaxman?”

“Possibly that was what I meant, but it is to be a tabooed topic with you for some years yet, Mr. Winthrop decides.”

“You have been unusually fortunate in that respect, Mr. Winthrop.  I used to think every one fell in love before they came to your age.”  Mrs. Flaxman glanced at him with a pained, startled look which I did not understand.  I noticed that his face though grave was unruffled; but he made me no reply.

I could not explain the reason, but I felt grieved that I had made the remark, and slipped quietly out of the room without my usual good-night.

The next day we left for home.  Mr. Winthrop was not fortunate in meeting friends; so he sat beside us.  I would have preferred being alone with Mrs. Flaxman, without the restraint of his society.  We had not been able on that train to secure a parlor car, for which I was very glad.  There seemed more variety and wider types of humanity in the plainer car, and I liked to study the different groups and indulge in my dreams concerning them.  My attention was suddenly attracted, at a station we were approaching, by a hearse and funeral procession apparently waiting for us.  The cars moving along presently hid them from my view, and my attention was suddenly distracted from this melancholy spectacle by the unusual circumstance of a man coming alone into the car with an infant in his arms.  The cars scarcely paused, and while I watched to see the mother following her baby the brakeman came in with an armfull of shawls, satchels, and baskets.  The baby soon began to cry; when it was pitiful to watch the poor fellow’s futile efforts to hush its wailings, while he tossed over the parcels apparently in search of something; but the baby’s cries continued to increase in volume, and the missing article, whatever it was, refused to turn up.