SNOWED UP. 
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red faces, hands in pockets, and bundles of unsold papers 
under their ragged and shivering arms; when, in general, 
human-kind presents itself as altogether a frozen, forlorn, 
discouraged, and hopeless race, condemned to be swept 
about on the nipping, dusty wind, like Francesca and her 
lover, at the rate of thirty miles an hour, — then the 
station becomes positively unendurable. 
So thought Bob Estabrook, as he paced to and fro in 
the Boston & Albany depot, travelling-bag in hand, on 
just such a night as I have described. Beside him, loco- 
motives puffed and plunged and backed on the shining 
rails, as if they, too, felt compelled to trot up and down 
to keep themselves warm, and in even tolerably good 
humor. 
" Just my luck ! " growled Bob, with a misanthropic 
glare at a loud-voiced family who were passing. Christ- 
mas coming, two jolly Brighton parties and an oratorio 
thrown up, and here am I, fired off to San Francisco. So 
much for being junior member of a law firm. Wonder 
what " — 
Here the rufiled current of his meditations ran plump 
against a rock, and as suddenly diverged from their former 
course. The rock was no less than a young person who 
at that moment approached, with a gray-haired man, and 
inquired the way to the ticket office. 
Bob politely gave them the desired information, and 
watched them with growing interest as they followed his 
directions and stood before the lighted window. The 
