BABY LEFT BEHIND. 253 



The fact was, one of the horses had a habit of stop- 

 ping so short, that he required a poll-chain the size 

 of the cable in the bows of a seventy-four gun ship 

 to keep him forward, and to prevent his shooting 

 backwards under the omnibus whenever the coach- 

 man gave him the least intimation that he had 

 arrived at his journey's end. We descended, and 

 were soon on the branch rail, on our way to the 

 main line. Arrived there, we had to wait for the 

 express train, and before it arrived a slow train 

 started for some place on the route, and after it had 

 got about a hundred yards, a French woman, who 

 had left her infant in one of the compartments while 

 she went in to eat and drink, appeared, and com- 

 menced a pursuit of the train as hard as she could 

 lay legs to the ground, shouting to it all the while 

 to *'stop and take her up." At first people pitied 

 her and laughed too; but when she continued her 

 course up the rails a sudden thought occurred to the 

 station-master of her meeting or being overtaken by 

 another train, so two nimble porters were despatched 

 to overtake and bring her back, which they suc- 

 ceeded in doing. 



My train at length arrived, when the priest and 

 myself were joined in it by a French gentleman, who 

 very kindly and civilly introduced himself to me, 



