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 After an hour's travelling we were deserted by all our fellow-passengers, and seemed to be waiting a very long time at a little country station. At length two old gentlemen entered, and, as the railway man opened the door for them, I said to him, 'Can you tell me why we are detained here so long?'

'Yes, ma'am,' he replied; 'there's an excursion train due directly, and we're shunted off the line to let it pass.'

'Horrid bore!' said one old gentleman.

'Disgraceful shame!' said the other; 'but don't let that make you uneasy, young lady,' he added, politely addressing me; shunted" means nothing dangerous.'

I was about to ask what it did mean, when with a whiz, and a great noise of cheering, the excursion train shot past us, displaying a long, long succession of second and third-class carriages, every window garnished with pale faces of men and women, besides numbers of delicate-looking children.

'Disgraceful shame!' repeated the stoutest of the old gentlemen; 'here's our train twenty minutes late; twenty minutes, sir, by the clock.'

'I should think,' said my brother, 'that this is not a grievance of very frequent occurrence—mail trains are not often obliged to give way to the convenience of the excursionists; but we were behind time when we got up to this station, and as we must stop a quarter of an hour shortly, we should very much have detained that train if it had been on the same line, and behind us.'

'Well, I can't make it out,' was the reply: 'and 7 *