she drew nearer the gate and regarded with absorbed
attention the long line of passengers already sweeping up the narrow
aisle between the cars.

Hurrying men came first, with long strides, and eyes that looked
straight ahead. These Billy let pass with a mere glance. The next group
showed a sprinkling of women--women whose trig hats and linen collars
spelled promptness as well as certainty of aim and accomplishment. To
these, also, Billy paid scant attention. Couples came next--the men
anxious-eyed, and usually walking two steps ahead of their companions;
the women plainly flustered and hurried, and invariably buttoning gloves
or gathering up trailing ends of scarfs or boas.

The crowd was thickening fast, now, and Billy's eyes were alert.
Children were appearing, and young women walking alone. One of these
wore a bunch of violets. Billy gave her a second glance. Then she saw a
pink--but it was on the coat lapel of a tall young fellow with a brown
beard; so with a slight frown she looked beyond down the line.

Old men came now, and old women; fleshy women, and women with small
children and babies. Couples came, too--dawdling couples, plainly newly
married: the men were not two steps ahead, and the women's gloves were
buttoned and their furs in place.

Gradually the line thinned, and soon there were left only an old man
with a cane, and a young woman with three children. Yet nowhere had
Billy seen a girl wearing a white carnation, and walking alone.

With a deeper frown on her face Billy turned and looked about her. She
thought that somewhere in the crowd she had missed Mary Jane, and that
she would find her now, standing near. But there was no one standing
near except the good-looking young fellow with the little pointed
brown beard, who, as Billy noticed a second time, was wearing a white
carnation.

As she glanced toward him, their eyes met. Then, to Billy's unbounded
amazement, the man advanced with uplifted hat.

"I beg your pardon, but is not this--Miss Neilson?"

Billy drew back with just a touch of hauteur.

"Y-yes," she murmured.

"I thought so--yet I was expecting to see you with Aunt Hannah. I am M.
J. Arkwright, Miss Neilson."

For a brief instant Billy stared dazedly.

"You don't mean--Mary Jane?" she gasped.

"I'm afraid I do." His lips twitched.

"But I thought--we were expecting--" She stopped helplessly. For one
more brief instant she stared; then, suddenly, a swift change came to
her