about
thirty-seven minutes. Now I want you to go into the waiting-room, and
sit there until I come back. Can I trust you?"

"Yes," said Maria, with a curious docility. She rose.

"You had better buy your ticket back to Amity, and when I come into
the station, I think it is better that I should only bow to you,
especially if others should happen to be there. Can I trust you to
stay there and not get on board any train but the one which goes to
Amity?"

"Yes, you can," said Maria, with the same docility which was born of
utter weariness and the subjection to a stronger will.

She went into the waiting-room and bought her ticket, then sat down
on a settee in the dusty, desolate place and waited. There were two
women there besides herself, and they conversed very audibly about
their family affairs. Maria listened absently to astonishing
disclosures. The man in the ticket-office was busy at the telegraph,
whose important tick made an accompaniment to the chatter of the
women, both middle-aged, and both stout, and both with grievances
which they aired with a certain delight. One had bought a damaged
dress-pattern in Ridgewood, and had gone that afternoon to obtain
satisfaction. "I set there in Yates & Upham's four mortal hours,"
said she, in a triumphant tone, "and they kep' comin' and askin' me
things, and sayin' would I do this and that, but I jest stuck to what
I said I would do in the first place, and finally they give in."

"What did you want?" asked the other woman.

"Well, I wanted my money back that I had paid for the dress, and I
wanted the dressmaker paid for cuttin' it--it was all cut an'
fitted--and I wanted my fares back and forth paid, too."

"You don't mean to say they did all that?" said the other woman, in a
tone of admiration.

"Yes, sir, they did. Finally Mr. Upham himself came and talked with
me, and he said he would allow me what I asked. I tell you I marched
out of that store, when I'd got my money back, feelin' pretty well
set up."

"I should think you would have," said the other woman, in an admiring
tone. "You do beat the Dutch!"

Then the women fell to talking about the niece of one of them who had
been jilted by her lover. "He treated her as mean as pusley," one
woman said. "There he'd been keepin' company with poor Aggie three
mortal years, comin' regular every Wednesday and Sunday night, and
settin' up with her, and keepin' off other fellers."

"I think he treated her awful mean,"