ssary, I fancy. You mustn't let
yourself get worried, dear Clovy. The old lady means kindly enough, I
think, only she's naturally tiresome, and has become helpless from habit.
Be nice to her, but hold your own. Self-preservation is the first law of
Nature."

Just at dusk the train reached Denver, and the dreaded moment of parting
came. There were kisses and tearful good-byes, but not much time was
allowed for either. The last glimpse that Clover had of Katy was as the
train moved away, when she put her head far out of the window of Car
Forty-seven to kiss her hand once more, and call back, in a tone oracular
and solemn enough to suit King Charles the First, his own admonitory word,
"Remember!"

CHAPTER VI.

ST. HELEN'S.

Never in her life had Clover felt so small and incompetent and so very,
very young as when the train with Car Forty-seven attached vanished from
sight, and left her on the platform of the Denver station with her two
companions. There they stood, Phil on one side tired and drooping, Mrs.
Watson on the other blinking anxiously about, both evidently depending on
her for guidance and direction. For one moment a sort of pale
consternation swept over her. Then the sense of the inevitable and the
nobler sense of responsibility came to her aid. She rallied herself; the
color returned to her cheeks, and she said bravely to Mrs. Watson,--

"Now, if you and Phil will just sit down on that settee over there and
make yourselves comfortable, I will find out about the trains for St.
Helen's, and where we had better go for the night."

Mrs. Watson and Phil seated themselves accordingly, and Clover stood for a
moment considering what she should do. Outside was a wilderness of tracks
up and down which trains were puffing, in obedience, doubtless, to some
law understood by themselves, but which looked to the uninitiated like the
direst confusion. Inside the station the scene was equally confused.
Travellers just arrived and just going away were rushing in and out;
porters and baggage-agents with their hands full hurried to and fro. No
one seemed at leisure to answer a question or even to listen to one.

Just then she caught sight of a shrewd, yet good-natured face looking at
her from the window of the ticket-office; and without hesitation she went
up to the enclosure. It was the ticket-agent whose eye she had caught. He
was at liberty at the moment, and his answers to her inquiries, though
brief, were poli