. Perfect barn of a house, and lost in the country, but
there's always room--especially for you, dear. You'll never get in
at a hotel.

Marie Louise propped this against the telephone and tried again.

The seventh central dazed her with, "We can take nothing but gov'ment
business till two P.M."

Marie Louise rose in despair, searched in her bag for her watch,
gasped, put the watch and the note back in her bag, snapped it, and
rose to go.

She decided to send Polly a telegram. She took out the note for the
address and telephoned a telegram, saying that she would arrive at
five o'clock. The telegraph-operator told her that the company could
not guarantee delivery, as traffic over the wires was very heavy.
Marie Louise sighed and rose, worn out with telephone-fag.

She told the maid to ask the hall-boy to get her a taxi, and hastily
made ready to leave. Her trunks had gone to the station an hour ago,
and they had been checked through from the house.

Her final pick-up glance about the room did not pick up the note she
had propped on the telephone-table. She left it there and closed the
door on another chapter of her life.

She rode to the station, and, after standing in line for a weary
while, learned that not a seat was to be had in a parlor-car to-day,
to-morrow, or any day for two weeks. Berths at night were still more
unobtainable.

She decided that she might as well go in a day-coach. Scores of people
had had the same idea before her. The day-coaches were filled. She
sidled through the crowded aisles and found no seat. She invaded the
chair-cars in desperation.

In one of these she saw a porter bestowing hand-luggage. She appealed
to him. "You must have one chair left."

He was hardly polite in his answer. "No, ma'am, I ain't. I ain't a
single chair."

"But I've got to sit somewhere," she said.

The porter did not comment on such a patent fallacy. He moved back to
the front to repel boarders. Several men stared from the depths of
their dentist's chairs, but made no proffer of their seats. They
believed that woman's newfangled equality included the privilege of
standing up.

One man, however, gave a start as of recognition, real or pretended.
Marie Louise did not know him, and said so with her eyes. His smile of
recognition changed to a smile of courtesy. He proffered her his seat
with an old-fashioned gesture. She declined with a shake of the head
and a coldly correct smile.

He insisted academ