The Bishop's Purse

This singular occurrence took place on a railway train in England, a boat train with passengers from Paris, three of these, a strangely assorted trio, being brought together by fate within the respectable cushioned walls of a first-class carriage. On one side sat an English bishop, in formal black garments, talking with evident interest and a certain deference to a very pretty and smartly dressed American girl, whose fresh views and charming lack of reverence seemed to delight the rather heavy-minded but well-meaning prelate.

Small wonder that the ecclesiastical gaze was held in rapt attention, for Miss Betty Thompson (of New York and recently of Paris) was not only fair to look upon with her teasing blue eyes, her long curling lashes, her auburn hair shot through with golden lights and her adorable mouth upturned at the corners, but she added to these the fatal gift of unexpectedness. So the bishop looked and listened and marveled, while the tired lines faded from his face and he reflected that, after all, the ride from Dover to London was very short, amazingly short.

The other one of this trio, whose meeting here was to have such far-reaching consequences, was a quietly attired young woman, traveling alone, her black hair and warm ivory coloring seeming to indicate a Latin origin. She, too, was a girl of striking beauty, but there was something of sadness and yearning in the depths of her lustrous dark eyes. As if weary with the journey, she dozed from time to time or seemed to doze, her thick lashes lifting occasionally for a languid glance at her companions and then drooping again, while a faint, half-wistful smile played about her full red lips.