DAY'S FIRST LOVE LETTER 290

XXX. WHAT THE ECHO MIGHT HAVE HEARD 302

ILLUSTRATIONS

The quick eye of Janice Day caught sight
of this row of nondescripts. (See page 15.) _Frontispiece_

FACING PAGE

The old violin wailed out the tune haltingly 72

God's world _did_ look bigger and greater from
The Overlook. (See page 155.) 154

She just _had_ to raise her eyes and look into his
earnest ones. (See page 307.) 306

JANICE DAY

CHAPTER I

A NEW-FASHIONED GIRL

"Well! this is certainly a relief from the stuffy old cars," said Janice
Day, as she reached the upper deck of the lake steamer, dropped her
suitcase, and drew in her first full breath of the pure air.

"What a beautiful lake!" she went on. "And how big! Why--I had no idea!
I wonder how far Poketown is from here?"

The ancient sidewheel steamer was small and there were few passengers on
the upper deck, forward. Janice secured a campstool and sat down near
the rail to look off over the water.

The officious man in the blue cap on the dock had shouted "All aboard!"
the moment the passengers left the cars of the little narrow-gauge
railroad, on which the girl had been riding for more than two hours; but
it was some minutes before the wheezy old steamer got under way.

Janice was interested in everything she saw--even in the clumsy warping
off of the _Constance Colfax_, when her hawsers were finally released.

"Goodness me!" thought the girl, chuckling, "what a ridiculous old tub
it is! How different everything East here is from Greensboro. There!
we're really off!"

The water hissed and splashed, as the wheels of the steamer began to
turn rheumatically. The walking-beam heaved up and down with many a
painful creak.

"Why! _that_ place is real pretty--when you look at it from the lake,"
murmured Janice, looking back at the little landing. "I wonder if
Poketown will be like it?"

She looked about her, half tempted to ask a question of somebody. There
was but a single passenger near her--a little, old lady in an
old-fashioned black mantilla with jet trimming, and wearing black lace
half-mitts and a little bonnet that had been so long out of date that it
was almost in the mode again.

She was seated with her back against the cabin house, and when the
steamer rolled a li