What's Bred in the Bone

ing off as she hurried upon the platform. Old Matthews, the stout and chubby-cheeked station-master, seized her most unceremon

ny more goin' on? All right, Tom! Go ahead there!" And lifting hi

ounted change, pence and all, in her little gloved hand, she found herself thrust, hap-hazard

it of requiring something or other, in the way of definite evidence, before it commits itself offhand to the distinct conclusion. But Elma Clifford was a woman; and therefore she knew a more excellent way. HER habit was, rather to look things once fairly and squarely in the face, and then, with the unerr

mbled into her place, she snatched one hurried look at Cyril W

his character. Instead of cutting his beard to a Vandyke point, or enduing his body in a Titianesque coat, or wearing on his head a slouched Rembrandt hat, stuck carelessly just a trifle on one side in artistic disorder, he was habited, for all the world like anybody else, in the grey tweed suit of the common British

ercising the familiar feminine prerogative of jumping, as if by magic, to a correct conclusion. It's a pr

to-and therefore as far as possible away from-her handsome companion, when the stranger rose,

it-I think you're going to sit down upon-ur-pray

the contrary notwithstanding, Elma couldn't for the life of her repress a smile. She looked down at the seat where the stranger pointed, and

se, but not at all in horror, as she felt she ought to

tly harmless. Aren't you, Sardanapalus? Eh, eh, my beauty? But I oughtn't to have let him loose in the carriage, of course," he added, after a short pause. "It's calculated to alarm a nervous passenger. O

one ought to be repelled at once by a snake," she said, taking the opposite seat, and keeping her glance fixed firmly upon the reptile's eye; "but then, this is such a handsome one! I can't say why, but I don't feel afraid of him at all

e beast into the lair with gentle but masterful hands. "Go back, and go to sleep, sir. It's time for your nap. … Oh no, I couldn't think of letting him out any more in the carriage to the annoyance of others. I'm ashamed enough as it is of having unintentionally alarmed you

ough her blush than even her usual self. "On the contrary, I really liked to see him. He's such a glorious snake! The

replied, with a look of sudden surprise; "but why 'of course

h the charming features, and the expressive eyes, and the neatly-cut brown beard, and the attractive manner, was an artist at all, or a

s sees in southern Europe, though rarely in England; and the effect of the blush through it didn't pass unnoticed by Cyril Waring's artistic eye. He would have given something for the chance of transferring that delicious effect to canvas. The delicate transparency of th

of fern and foliage-quite tropical in its way-in a wood hereabout; and I've introduced Sardanapalus, coiled up in the foreground, just to give life to the scene, don't you know, and

k with the handsome young artist in the second-class carriage, on the Great Southern line, was to Elma as a charming and delightful glimpse of an enchanted region she could never enter. It was Paradise to the Peri. She turned the conversation at once, therefore, with resolute intent upon art and artists, determined to make the most while it lasted of this unique opportunity. And since the subject of self, with an attentive listener, is always an attractive one, even to modest young men like Cyril Waring-especially when it's a pretty girl who encourages you to dilate upon it-why, the consequence

lf once more from his box, and with deftly persuasive fingers coiled him gracefully round on the opposite se

im, as she might reasonably have expected to be, according to all womanly precedent. On the contrary, she felt an overwhelming desire to take him up in her own

t be frightened if he springs at you. He's vicious at tim

ifting his flattened head with serpentine deliberation, he coiled his great folds slowly, slowly, with sinuous curves, round the girl's soft arm till he reached her neck in long, winding convolutions. There he held

aw Sardanapalus behave like that with a stranger before. He's generally by no means fond of new acquaintanc

aw, of Sardanapalus; "I never so much as touched one in all my life before. And I thought I should hate them. But this one seems qui

rdingly. I suppose it's instinct. When they see you're afraid of them, they spring and hiss; but when they see you take to them by nature, they make themselves perfectly at home in a moment. They don't wait to be asked. They've no

ced to fall suddenly on the name of the station printed on the t

"why, that's ever so far back. We're long past Warnworth. We ran by it three or

ith a half-guilty smile

ying it, I thought I was so comfortable and so happy where I was, that I might just as well go on a station or two more, and then pay the difference, and take the next train

y, at least, she knew it was her bounden duty, as an English lady, to seem so; and she seemed so accordingly with most Britannic severity. She drew herself

a matter of fact, she had enjoyed their talk together immensely. "And besides, you've been wasting your valuable time when you ought

te suddenly. "I shall certainly get out wherever you wish," he went on, more slowly, in an altered voice; "and I sincerely regret if I've unwittingly don

whisked, unawares, into