The conductor was very kind; an old gentleman, who was pleased with her twinkling eyes and red cheeks, gave her an orange, and helped look after her baggage; two old ladies gave her fennel and peppermints; and before she reached Boston she was on terms of intimacy with six babies, a lapdog, and a canary-bird.
Altogether, it had been a most charming journey, and she was almost sorry when they reached the city, and the train rolled slowly into the dark depot.
The passengers were crowding rapidly out, the lamps were lighted in the car, and she felt a little lonely sitting still there, and waiting for her uncle.

She had not waited but a moment, however, when a pleasant, whiskered face appeared at the car-door, and one of those genial, "off-hand" voices, that sound at once so kindly and so careless, called out,-- "O--ho! So here's the girl! Glad to see you, child.

This way; the hack's all ready." She was hurried into a carriage, her trunk was tossed on behind, and then the door was shut, and they were driven rapidly away through a maze of crooked streets, glare of gaslights, and brilliant shop-windows, that bewildered Gypsy.

She had a notion that was the way fairy-land must look.
Her uncle laughed, good-naturedly, at her wide-open eyes.
"Boston is a somewhat bigger village than Yorkbury, I suppose! How's your father?
Why didn't he come with you?
Is your mother well?
And that boy--Linnie--Silly--what do call him ?" "Winnie, sir; and then there's Tom." "Winnie--oh, yes! Tom well, too ?" Before the ride was over, Gypsy had come to the conclusion that she liked her uncle very much, only he had such a funny way of asking questions, and then forgetting all about them.
The driver reined up at a house on Beacon Street, and Gypsy was led up a long flight of steps through a bright hall, and into a room that dazzled her.

A bright coal-fire was glowing in the grate, for it was a chilly evening, and bright jets of gas were burning in chandeliers.