the station waiting room. She went to the ticket window but found there no attendant. Impatiently she tapped her little foot on the old board floor but no one appeared.
“Agent,” she called out, rapping with her knuckles on the window shelf, “Agent, – where are you?”
“Who’s there? What d’y’ want?” growled a surly voice, and a head appeared at the ticket window.
“I want somebody to look after me! I’m alone, and I want a porter, and I want a conveyance and I want some information.”
“Oh, you do! Well, I can’t supply porters nor yet conveyances; but information I may be able to give you.”
“Very well then,” and a pair of big, dark eyes seemed to pierce his very brain. “Then tell me where I can find the best accommodations in Corinth.”
The now roused agent looked more interestedly at the inquirer.
He saw a mere slip of a girl, young, slender, and very alert of manner. Her dark, grave little face was oval, and her eyes had a strange uncanny way of roving quickly about, and coming suddenly back, greatly disconcerting the stolid ticket agent.
This agent was not unused to girls, – a college town is often invaded by hordes of smart young women, pretty girls and gay hoydens. Many Junes he had sold tickets or given information to hundreds of feminine inquirers but none had ever seemed quite like this one.
“Best accommodations?” he repeated stupidly.
“You heard me, then! About when do you propose to reply?”
Still he gazed at her in silence, running over in his mind the various boarding houses, and finding none he thought she’d like.
“There’s a rule of the Railroad Company that questions must be answered the same day they’re asked,” she said, witheringly, and picking up her suitcase she started for the door, feeling that any one she might find would know more than this dummy.
“Wait, – oh, I say, miss, wait a minute.”
“I did,” she said coolly, proceeding to the door.
“But, – oh, hold on, – try Old Salt Adams, – you couldn’t do better.”
“Where is it?” she deigned to pause a moment, and he replied quickly:
“He’s right outside, – hurry up out, – you can catch him!”
Here was something she could understand, and she hurried up out, just in time to see an old man with long white beard jump into his sleigh and begin to tuck fur robes about him.
“He sprang to his sleigh, – to his team gave a whistle, – ” she quoted to herself, and then cried out, “Hey, there, Santa Claus, give me a lift?”
“You engaged for our house?” the man called back, and as she shook her head, he gathered up his reins.
“Can’t take any one not engaged,” he called back, “Giddap!”
“Wait, – wait! I command you!” The sharp, clear young voice rang out through the cold winter air, and Old Saltonstall Adams paused to listen.
“Ho, ho,” he chuckled, “you command me, do you? Now, I haven’t been commanded for something like fifty years.”
“Oh, don’t stop to fuss,” the girl exclaimed, angrily. “Don’t you see I’m cold, hungry and very uncomfortable? You have a boarding house, – I want board, – now, you take me in. Do you hear?”
“Sure I hear, but, miss, we’ve only so many rooms and they’re all occupied or engaged.”
“Some are engaged, but as yet unoccupied?” The dark eyes challenged him, and Adams mumbled, – “Well, that’s about it.”
“Very well, I will occupy one until the engager comes along. Let me get in. No, I can manage my suitcase myself. You get my trunk, – here’s the check. Or will you send for that tomorrow?”
“Why wait? Might’s well get it now – if so be you’re bound to bide. ’Fraid to wait in the sleigh alone?”
“I’m afraid of nothing,” was the disdainful answer, and the girl pulled the fur robes up around her as she sat in the middle of the back seat.
Shortly, old Salt returned with the trunk on his shoulder, and put it in the front with himself, and they started.
“Don’t try to talk,” he called back to her, as the horses began a rapid trot. “I can’t hear you against this wind.”
“I’ve no intention of talking,” the girl replied, but the man couldn’t hear her. The wind blew fiercely. It was snowing a little, and the drifts sent feathery clouds through the air. The trees, coated with ice from a recent sleet storm, broke off crackling bits of ice as they passed. The girl looked about, at first curiously, and then timidly, as if frightened by what she saw.
It was not a long ride, and they stopped before a large house, showing comfortably lighted windows and a broad front door that swung open even as the girl was getting down from the sleigh.
“For the land sake!” exclaimed a brisk feminine voice, “this ain’t Letty! Who in the earth have you got here?”
“I don’t know,” Old Salt Adams replied, truthfully. “Take her along, mother, and give her a night’s lodging.”
“But where is Letty? Didn’t she come?”
“Now can’t you see she didn’t come? Do you s’pose I left her at the station? Or dumped her out along the road? No – since you will have it, she didn’t come. She didn’t come!”
Old Salt drove on toward the barns, and Mrs. Adams bade the girl go into the house.
The landlady followed, and as she saw the strange guest she gazed at her in frank curiosity.
“You want a room, I s’pose,” she began. “But, I’m sorry to say we haven’t one vacant – ”
“Oh, I’ll take Letty’s. She didn’t come, you see, so I can take her room for tonight.”
“Letty wouldn’t like that.”
“But I would. And I’m here and Letty isn’t. Shall we go right up?”
Picking up her small suitcase, the girl started and then stepped back for the woman to lead the way.
“Not quite so fast —if you please. What is your name?”
As the landlady’s tone changed to a sterner inflection, the girl likewise grew dignified.
“My name is Anita Austin,” she said, coldly. “I came here because I was told it was the best house in Corinth.”
“Where are you from?”
“New York City.”
“What address?”
“Plaza Hotel.”
By this time the strange
