Did she whose courage had parted the stormy waters of trouble, and who had come out triumphant, turn a deaf ear to that wail of despair?
Is woman _always_ the bitterest foe of her crushed sister? always the first to throw a stone at her?
No--God be thanked! For the first time Rose was folded to a loving sister's heart, and in the sweet words of Ruth to Naomi, Gertrude said, as she bade Rose good-night,
"Whither thou goest I will go; whither thou lodgest I will lodge; naught but death shall part thee and me."
Was the watchman's midnight cry, "All's well," beneath the window, a prophecy?
"Seems to me that you are nudging a fellow for his ticket every five minutes," said a lantern-jawed looking individual to the railroad conductor, as he roused himself from his nap, and pulled a bit of red pasteboard from his hat-band. "I feel as if my gastronomic region had been scooped out, and rubbed dry with a crash-towel; how long before we stop, hey?"
"Buy some books, sir?" said a young itinerant bookseller to our hungry traveler.
"Have you the 'True guide for travelers to preserve their temper?'" said our friend to the urchin.
The boy looked anxiously over the titles of his little library, and replied, with a shake of the head, "No, sir, I never heard of it."
"Nor I either," responded the hungry growler; "so get about your business; the best book that was ever written can neither be ate nor drank; I'd give a whole library for a glass of brandy and water this minute," and the unhappy man folded his arms over his waistband, and doubled himself up like a hedgehog in the corner.
"I am always sure to get a seat on the sunny side of the cars, and next to an Irish woman," muttered a young lady. "I wonder do the Irish never feed on any thing but rum and onions?"
"Very uncomfortable, these seats," muttered a gentleman who had tried all sorts of positions to accommodate his vertebræ; "the corporation really should attend to it. I will write an article about it in my paper, as soon as I reach home. I will annihilate the whole concern; they ought to remember that editors occasionally travel, and remember which side their bread is buttered. Shade of Franklin! how my bones ache; they shall hear of this in 'The Weekly Scimeter.' It is a downright imposition."