ttle the ball of knitting-cotton, which she had taken
out of her deep, bead-bespangled bag, bounced out of her lap and rolled
across the deck almost to the feet of Janice.

Up the girl jumped and secured the runaway ball, winding the cotton as
she approached the old lady, who peered up at her, her head on one side
and her eyes sparkling, like an inquisitive bird.

"Thank ye, child," she said, briskly. "I ain't as spry as I use ter be,
an' ye done me a favor. I guess I don't know ye, do I?"

"I don't believe you do, Ma'am," agreed Janice, smiling, and although
she could not be called "pretty" in the sense in which the term is
usually written, when Janice smiled her determined, and rather
intellectual face became very attractive.

"You don't belong in these parts?" pursued the old lady.

"Oh, no, Ma'am. I come from Greensboro," and the girl named the middle
western state in which her home was situated.

"Do tell! You come a long distance, don't ye?" exclaimed her
fellow-passenger. "You're one of these new-fashioned gals that travel
alone, an' all that sort o' thing, ain't ye? I reckon your folks has got
plenty of confidence in ye."

Janice laughed again, and drew her campstool to the old lady's side.

"I was never fifty miles away from home before," she confessed, "and I
never was away from my father over night until I started East two days
ago."

"Then ye ain't got no mother, child?"

"Mother died when I was a very little girl. Father has been everything
to me--just everything!" and for a moment the bright, young face
clouded and the hazel eyes swam in unshed tears. But she turned quickly
so that her new acquaintance might not see them.

"Where are you goin', my dear?" asked the old lady, more softly.

"To Poketown. And oh! I _do_ hope it will be a nice, lively place, for
maybe I'll have to remain there a long time--months and months!"

"For the land's sake!" exclaimed the old lady, nodding her head briskly
over the knitting needles. "So be I goin' to Poketown."

"Are you, really?" ejaculated Janice Day, clasping her hands eagerly,
and turning to her new acquaintance. "Isn't that nice! Then you can tell
me just what Poketown is like. I've got to stay there with my uncle
while father is in Mexico----"

"Who's your uncle, child?" demanded the old lady, quickly. "And who's
your father?"

Janice naturally answered the last question first, for her heart was
full of her father and her separation from him. "M