ld on her fancy as the other.

She left the lamp burning up-stairs, thinking suddenly that it would
be well to have the house present the appearance of being well
inhabited. She took her hat and coat and her little travelling-bag,
and she went back to the place by the parlor window and stared out at
the lawn again. It was growing very late. Soon it would be time for
her to watch for the last train. It really seemed to the girl an
incredible supposition of disaster that that train could pass by and
her father not appear, and that in the face of her morbid and
pessimistic conclusions. She was a mass of inconsistencies, of
incoherencies. She at once despaired and hoped with a hope that was
conviction. At last, when she saw by the clock that it only wanted a
few minutes before the time when the last train was due, her spirits
arose as if winged. She even went out in the kitchen and examined the
wretched dinner to make sure it was still hot. She put more coal on
the range. The house was growing very cold, and she knew that the
furnace fire needed attention, but she absolutely dared not go down
cellar alone at that time. They had very little coal, also, and had
been in the habit of letting the furnace fire die down at night. She
put on her coat when she returned from the kitchen, and sat again by
the window. She felt now an absolute certainty that her father would
arrive on this train. She felt that it was monstrous to assume that
her father would not come home all night and leave her alone with no
message. She felt even quite radiantly happy sitting there. She said
to herself what a little goose she had been. Even a noise made by
some coal falling in the kitchen-range failed to startle her. She now
hoped that the train would not be late, and it was, in fact, very
nearly on time. Then she watched for her father with not the
slightest doubt that he would come. It had come to that pass that her
credulity as to disaster had failed her. It was simply out of her
power to credit the possibility of his not coming on this train when
he had sent no telegram. She knew that there would be no carriage at
the station at that hour, unless he had telegraphed for one from New
York, and she questioned, in the state of their finances, if he would
do that. She was therefore sure of seeing his figure appear, coming,
with the stately stride which she knew so well, into view on the road
below the lawn.

She allowed twenty-five minutes for his ap