Waterbury evening Democrat., 1890-08-20
CHAPTER I,

passengers rushed for and through the station to find egress, discouraged by the impassive official whose stentorlan tones were roaring through the build ing the name and stopping places of the next train. Among the foremost in the run was hazel-eyed young man with a grip sack in his hand, and the olive-bronze of sea voyage upon very cookbook ing face. He was always persuaded that he could have eludcd the great-voiced door-kecper and boarded the fast plat form of the moving cars, had he not run a-foul of a wheeled chair midway be- tween the seats and inconVcnicntly-sV radiators in the waitinT-room, and mar rowly escaped a ''headrr." He did not actually fall; neither did he oversct th" vehicle. Avoiding both calamitieS by vaulting the dashboard and front wheels, he yet dropped his hat and va lise in different directions. and brought up at an ohtusc angle by catching at ono of the handicapped radiators. The first use he made of his hat, which was picked up by smiling bystand"r, was to lift it to a woman who was propclling what he had mistaken for a baby's per ambulator.
 II beg your pardon. I am sure!" he | said. in manly fashion. "I hope the" he was about to say baby" but changed the phraseology just in time-'that nobody was hurt
 A glimpse of the occupant of the chair had showed him wan face too | old for a child's, too small for that of a grown person. Before the woman ad dressed could reply, elish accents, husky and precise, said. Not at all | thank you!" and there vas a cackle of shrill, feeble laughter.
 The young fellow had lost the train | that should have returned him in forty minTtes to the fatNily he had not seen | in six months; he was just off ship-board and fC4t the need of bath and toilette upon steady ground, with plenty of | elbow-room. He had come near having bad fall and had not missed making q ludicrous spectacle of himself, for the entertainment of gaping crowd. But he laughed in jolly, gcntlemanly way, and again raising his hat passed on without a second glance at the mute parsonage who had pushed the wagon directly across his track.
 Like the rest of the disappointed way farers, he walked quite up to the outlet of the station, and peered anxiously through at the empty rails, still vibrat- ing from the wheels of the vanishing train, yet he neither drowned nor swore. He did not even ask: "When does the next train go to Fairhill?" The time table in his pocket and that upon tho wall, set at ''2 p. m." told him all, and more than he wanted to know. The excitement and suspense over, his inner man became importunate. He had had an>ear1y breakfast on tho City of Rome, and was far hungricr now than then. Doubling upon his tracks, he repaired to the Keystone restaurant in the samc building with the vast waiting-room and offices. The place was clean, and full of odors that, for wonder, were fresh and savory, instead of hanging on the B air and clinging to the walls like view less "In Memoriam" of an innumerable caravan of dead-and-gOne feasts. The
 menu was promising to an unsated ap petite, and having given his order to { I waiter the even-tempered customer sa ? back in his chair and surveyed the scene with the air of ono whose mind was, a, the hymnist aptly puts it--"at leisur, from itself"
 This lack of self-consciousness under , lay much that made March Gilchris
 popular in his set. He was clever art
 ist, and wrought hard and well at hi
 profession, although he had ricl
 father. His position in society was as
 sured, his physique fine and education
 excellent-advantages fully appreciated
 by most of the men, and all the wome1 t he knew. If he recognized their valu
 he was an adroit 8issembler. Simpl
 and frank in manner, he met his worlt
 with outstretched hand. When tn
 hand was not taken he laughed ill good humored astonishment, went about hi
 business and forgot the churl. Hi
 schoolmates used to say that it did no
 pay to quarrel with him; his parents
 that he and his sister May should eS \ rhannn nnmaa That his annin hilitr ,un