A Romance in Transit

"I can't let it make a difference now, but I shall always be glad that I asked you when we both believed you were going to lose it. And I ought to have guessed about your cousin's marriage, but I didn't – I helped him find the County Clerk, and wondered why he was so anxious about it. I'm glad you didn't have to break his heart."

She laughed happily. "There was no question of hearts between us; he knew it, and I knew it; and when he spoke to me to-night, we settled it definitely. Are you glad or sorry? about the money, I mean."

"Both, I think; glad for your sake, though."

"I'll go and live in the five-roomed cottage with you, if you like, and we'll forget all about it."

"I believe you'd do it" – Brockway glanced up, and, seeing the red signal still displayed, blessed the tardy operator who was doubtless bungling the train-order – "but I shan't insist." Then with a touch of graver earnestness: "We are properly engaged now, aren't we?"

"I should hope so" – shyly.

He took a ring from his pocket and slipped it over the finger of the captive hand.

"It isn't every one who goes prepared," he said, with quiet humor; "it was a gift from a train-load of Grand Army people I took across last year; and I've carried it in my pocket ever since because I didn't think I had any right to wear diamonds. Will you wear it for me?"

"Always."

"Will you wear it to-morrow – before all the others? I'm coming in to breakfast, you know. Your father asked me."

"I said always."

Conductor Graffo, coming out of the telegraph office with a scrap of tissue paper in his hand: "All abo-o-ard!"

"That parts us again," said Brockway, sorrowfully. "Good-night, dear; God keep you safe" – the air-brakes sighed sympathetically, and he kissed her hand and released it – "till to-morrow." His face was at the window, and two soft arms came out of the square of darkness and went about his neck, and two lips that he could not see brushed his cheek.

"Till to-morrow," she repeated; and then the train began to move and she let him go quickly that he might run no risk of stumbling.

The engine groaned and strained, filling the air with a jarring as of nearby thunder; the steam hissed from the cylinders, and the great driving-wheels began once more to measure the rails. Brockway swung lightly up to the step of the Tadmor, and when the last switch-lamp had shot backward into the night, went to his berth to wrestle with his happiness until tardy sleep came, bringing in its train a beatific vision in which the song of the drumming wheels became the overture to a wedding march, and the mellow blasts of the whistle rang a merry peal of joy-bells.