They lost sight of the invalid in the hurry of getting places on the
cars, and they never saw her again. The man at the wicket-gate leading to
the train had thrown it up, and the people were pressing furiously
through as if their lives hung upon the chance of instant passage. Basil
had secured his ticket for the sleeping-car, and so he and Isabel stood
aside and watched the tumult. When the rash was over they passed through,
and as they walked up and down the platform beside the train, "I was
thinking," said Isabel, "after I spoke to that poor old lady, of what
Clara Williams says: that she wonders the happiest women in the world can
look each other in the face without bursting into tears, their happiness
is so unreasonable, and so built upon and hedged about with misery. She
declares that there's nothing so sad to her as a bride, unless it's a
young mother, or a little girl growing up in the innocent gayety of her
heart. She wonders they can live through it."

"Clara is very much of a reformer, and would make an end of all of us
men, I suppose,--except her father, who supports her in the leisure that
enables her to do her deep thinking. She little knows what we poor
fellows have to suffer, and how often we break down in business hours,
and sob upon one another's necks. Did that old lady talk to you in the
same strain?"

"O no! she spoke very calmly of her sickness, and said she had lived a
blessed life. Perhaps it was that made me shed those few small tears. She
seemed a very religious person."

"Yes," said Basil, "it is almost a pity that religion is going out. But
then you are to have the franchise."