stance a bridge was washed away, and in the other my special train (the price I paid for that train still keeps me hot against the Trusts) ran into a snowdrift and stayed there until after midnight, instead of delivering me on time, as agreed. I had arrived late, of course, many times, gone without my supper often, and more than once had appeared without the proper habiliments—and I am particular about my dress coat and white waistcoat—but only twice had the gas been turned off and the people turned out. Another time I had—

"Sheffield! Shef-fie-l-d! All out for Shef-f-i-e-l-d!" yelled the conductor.

The two bags once more, the conductor helping me on with my overcoat, down the snow-blocked steps and out into the night.

"Step lively!—more'n an hour late now."

I looked about me. I was the only passenger. Not a light of any kind—not a building of any kind, sort, or description, except a box-car of a station set up on end, pitch dark inside and out, and shut tight. No carriage. No omnibus; nothing on runners; nothing on wheels. Only a dreary waste of white, roofed by a vast expanse of black.

"Is this Sheffield?" I gasped.

"Yes,—all there is here; the balance is two miles over the hills."

"The town?"

"Town?—no, the settlement;—ain't more's two dozen houses in it."

"They were to send a carriage and—"

"Yes—that's an old yarn—better foot it for short." Here he swung his lantern to the engineer craning his head from the cab of the locomotive, and sprang aboard. Then this fragment came whirling through the steam and smoke:—"There's a farmhouse somewhere's over the hill,—follow the fence and turn to—" the rest was lost in the roar of the on-speeding train.

I am no longer young. Furthermore, I hate to carry things—bags especially. One bag mi