I
A railroad station in a large city is hardly an inviting spot, at its
best; but at the close of a cold, cheerless, blustering December day,
when biting draughts of wind come scurrying in at every open door,
filling the air with a gray compound of dust and fine snow; when
passengers tramp up and down the long platform, waiting impatiently
for their trains; when newsboys wander about with disconsolate, red
faces, hands in pockets and bundles of unsold papers under their
ragged and shivering arms; when, in general, humankind presents itself
as altogether a frozen, forlorn, discouraged and hopeless race,
condemned to be swept about on the nipping, dusty wind, like Francesca
and her lover, at the rate of thirty miles an hour--then the station
becomes positively unendurable.
So thought Bob Estabrook, as he paced to and fro in the Boston and
Albany depot, traveling-bag in hand, on just such a night as I have
described. Beside him locomotives puffed and plunged and backed on the
shining rails, as if they, too, felt compelled to trot up and down to
keep themselves warm, and in even tolerably good humor.
“Just my luck!” growled Bob, with a misanthropic glare at a
loud-voiced family who were passing; “Christmas coming, two jolly
Brighton parties and an oratorio thrown up, and here am I, fired off
to San Francisco. So much for being junior member of a law firm.
Wonder what”--
Here the ruffled current of his meditations ran plump against a rock,
and as suddenly diverged from their former course. The rock was no
less than a young person who at that moment approached, with a
gray-haired man, and inquired the way to the ticket-office.
Bob politely gave them the desired information, and watched them with
growing interest as they followed his directions, and stood before the
lighted window. The two silhouettes were decidedly out of the common.
The voice, whose delicate tones still lingered pleasantly about Mr.
Robert Estabrook’s fastidious ears, was an individual voice, as
distinguishable from any other he remembered as was the owner’s bright
face, the little fur collar beneath it, the daintily-gloved hands, and
the pretty brown traveling suit.
“Dignified old fellow!” mused Bob, irrelevantly as the couple moved
toward the train-gates. “Probably her father. Perhaps--hallo, by
George, they’re going on my car!”
With which breath of summer in his winter of discontent the young man
proceeded to finish his cigar, consult his watch, and, as the last
warning bell rang, step upon the platform of the already moving
Pullman. It must be admitted that as he entered he gave an expectant
glance down the aisle of the car; but the somber curtains hanging from
ceiling to floor told no tales. Too sleepy to speculate, and too
learned in the marvelous acoustic properties of a sleeping-car to
engage the porter in conversation on the subject, he found his berth,
arranged himself for the night with the nonchalance of an old
traveler, and, laying his head upon his vibrating atom of a pillow,
was soon plunged into a dream at least fifty miles long.