COMMUTER'S WIFE 5 



own telegram unopened, saying, " The doctor wasn't 

 looking for you, ma'am, until the eight o'clock train, 

 and he drove over to the hospital a few minutes 

 before this came, saying he'd, be back well before 

 seven." 



A weight fell upon the buoyant spirits that had 

 hurried me helter skelter from steamer to train, that 

 not a moment might be lost in getting to home and 

 father perhaps I should say father and home ; but I 

 think that in the far back transmigratory time I must 

 have once been a carrier pigeon, so strong is the 

 homing instinct in me. 



Evan said that we should be arrested for escaped 

 lunatics, even if we avoided a similar penalty for 

 reckless driving. At the same time he promised the 

 driver an extra dollar if he made the desired train, 

 this being a combination of his inborn English cus- 

 tom of tipping, that makes travel so easy, and a 

 prudent way that Evan has of explaining certain dis- 

 advantages in what one wishes to do at the same 

 time that he is smoothing the way for the doing 

 thereof. All the way from Sandy Hook to the pier, 

 I had thumbed the old yellow time-table, never realiz- 

 ing the changes that two years might have made in 

 it, fastening upon one train after another as petty 

 delays caused each in turn to be impossible. People 



