his ears, for in a moment he came in and passed back
to his seat in a forward car. The girls sat demurely looking out of the
windows until he was gone, then they faced each other, giggling.

"Suppose he had caught us making those idiotic faces," exclaimed
Allison. "He would have taken us for a lot of escaped lunatics."

"No, he wouldn't," insisted Gay. "He was a real benevolent-looking old
fellow, the kind that understands young people, and he'd know that it
was just that Christmas has gone to our heads, and made us a little
flighty. I'm sure that his name is James, and that he has six old maid
daughters. He lives out West, and he's taking home a trunk full of
presents for them."

"Let's guess what he has for them," said Kitty. "I'll say that the
oldest one is named Emmaline, and he is taking her a squirrel fur muff."

"And the next one is Agnes Dorothea," said Betty, taking her turn, as if
it were a game. "She's the delicate one of the family, and a sort of
invalid. So he bought her a lavender shoulder shawl that caught his
fatherly eye in a show window, because it was so soft and fluffy. But it
will shrink and fade the first time it is washed till Agnes Dorothea
will look like a homeless cat if she wears it. Still she will persist in
putting it on because dear father brought it to her from Washington."

"He'd certainly think you all were crazy if he could heah yoah
remah'ks," laughed Lloyd.

"Speaking of shawls," cried Gay, "that reminds me of that rainbow shawl
in my bag. I haven't taken a stitch in it since we started, and I
intended to knit all the way home. I simply have to, if I'm to get it
done in time."

Taking out the square of linen in which the fleecy zephyr was wrapped,
she settled herself by the rear window in a big arm-chair, with her feet
drawn up under her, and fell to work with all her might.

"It's so nice and cosy to have the car all to ourselves," sighed
Allison, stretching out luxuriously on the sofa. Betty, bending over her
embroidery, smiled tenderly at a picture that her memory showed her just
then. She was comparing this journey with the first one she had ever
taken. And she saw in her thoughts a little brown-eyed girl of eleven,
setting forth on her first venture into the wide world, with a
sunbonnet tied over her curls, and an old-fashioned covered basket on
her arm. What a dread undertaking that journey had been from the
Cuckoo's Nest to the House Beautiful. She remembered how frigh