"Something has
come to me in the strangest way, and I think I ought to tell you,
although I haven't any interest in it, and it certainly isn't any of my
business."
Her companion was too blunt to be likely to help her much. He simply
asked, in the most straightforward manner,--
"What is it?"
"It's about public business," she said. "Why!" she added, as if a
sudden light had broken upon her. "I really believe I was going to be a
lobbyist. Fancy me lobbying! What does a lobbyist do?"
"Nothing that you'd be likely to have any hand in," returned
Greenfield, smiling at the absurdity of the proposition. "What is all
this about?"
"I suppose I should not have thought of it but for the turn the talk
took to-night," she returned with feminine indirectness. "It was odd,
wasn't it, that we should get to talking of the harm railroads do, when
it was about a railroad that I was going to talk."
"There's only one railroad scheme on foot this spring that I know
anything about, and that's for a branch of the Massachusetts Outside
Railroad through Wachusett. That isn't in the Legislature either."
"That's the one. It's going to be in the Legislature. There's going to
be an attempt to change the route."
"Change the route?"
"Yes, so it will go through--but will you promise not to tell this to a
living mortal?"
"Of course."
"I suppose," she said, regarding her slipper intently, "that I really
ought not to tell you; but I can't help it somehow.
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