SCENE: One side of a sleeping-car on the Boston and Albany Road.  The curtains are drawn before most of the berths; from the hooks and rods hang hats, bonnets, bags, bandboxes, umbrellas, and other travelling gear; on the floor are boots of both sexes, set out for THE PORTER to black.  THE PORTER is making up the beds in the upper and lower berths adjoining the seats on which a young mother, slender and pretty, with a baby asleep on the seat beside her, and a stout old lady, sit confronting each

At Worcester, where the train has made the usual stop, THE PORTER, with his lantern on his arm, enters the car, preceding a gentleman somewhat anxiously smiling; his nervous speech contrasts painfully with the business-like impassiveness of THE PORTER, who refuses, with an air of incredulity, to enter into the confidences which the gentleman seems reluctant to bestow. MR. EDWARD ROBERTS.  This is the Governor Marcy, isn’t it? THE PORTER.  Yes, sah. MR. ROBERTS.  Came on from Albany, and not from

The train stops at Framingham, and THE PORTER comes in with a passenger whom he shows to the seat opposite MR. and MRS. ROBERTS. THE PORTER.  You can sit here, sah.  We’ll be in in about an hour now.  Hang up your bag for you, sah? THE PASSENGER.  No, leave it on the seat here. [THE PORTER goes out, and the ROBERTSES maintain a dejected silence.  The bottom of the bag, thrown carelessly on the seat, is toward the ROBERTSES, who regard it listlessly.] MRS. ROBERTS (suddenly clutching her husband’