!"

She put both hands on his arm to force him from the room, while he
laughed and said, "Did you think I would let you go to Florida alone? I
am going with you. I have a section all to myself outside, where you can
sit when you are tired in here. Are you sorry?"

"Sorry!" she repeated. "I was never so glad in my life. But are you sure
you ought to go? Is it right?"

"You mean proper? Perfectly!" he answered. "Your mother is with us. Your
friend Ruby knows I am going, and Mr. Mason, and Mrs. Biggs, and
everybody else by this time. It's all right. Mrs. Grundy will approve."

Eloise was too happy to care for Mrs. Grundy, and her happiness
increased with every hour which brought her nearer to Florida, and she
saw more and more how thoroughly kind and thoughtful Jack was. Sometimes
he sat with her and her mother in the compartment he had engaged for
them, but oftener when Amy was resting she sat with him in his section,
planning what she was to do first when Florida was reached, and how she
was to find Jakey. Jack knew exactly what to do, but he liked to listen
to her and watch the expression of her face, which seemed to him to
grow more beautiful every hour. On the last evening they were to be upon
the road, she was sitting with him just before the car lamps were
lighted, and he said to her, "Suppose you don't succeed? What will you
do?"

For a moment Eloise was silent; then she replied, "I shall take mother
home to my grandmother's. I call her that still, although you know she
is not really mine, but I love her just the same, and shall take care of
her and mother. I can do it. Ruby will let me have the school, I am
sure, if I ask her, but I couldn't take it from her now. I can get
another somewhere, or if not a school, I can find something to do. I am
not afraid of work."

She was trying to be very brave, but there was a pathetic look in her
face which moved Jack strangely. Her hands were lying in her lap, and
taking the one nearest to him, he said, "Eloise, I'll tell you what you
are going to do, whether you succeed or not. You are going to be my
wife! Yes, my wife!"

"Mr. Harcourt!" Eloise exclaimed, trying to withdraw her hand from him.

But he only held it closer, while he said, "Don't Mr. Harcourt me! Call
me Jack, and I shall know you assent. I think I have loved you ever
since I saw you on the rostrum in Mayville,--at any rate, ever since
that stormy night when you came near being killed. I did not mean to