AN INCIDENT IN A STREET CAR When Frank returned to the city, he walked slowly up through the Battery to the foot of Broadway.

He passed the famous house, No.

1, which, a hundred years ago, was successively the headquarters of Washington and the British generals, who occupied New York with their forces, and soon reached the Astor House, then the most notable structure in the lower part of the city.
With his small means, Frank felt that it was extravagant to ride uptown, when he might have walked, but he felt some confidence in the success of his visit to Mr.Percival, and entered a Fourth Avenue horse car.

It so chanced that he seated himself beside a pleasant-looking young married lady, who had with her a young boy about seven years old.
Soon after the car started the conductor came around to collect the fares.
Frank paid his, and the conductor held out his hand to the lady.
She put her hand into her pocket to draw out her purse, but her countenance changed as her hand failed to find it.
Probably no situation is more trying than to discover that you have lost or mislaid your purse, when you have an urgent use for it.

The lady was evidently in that predicament.