lower deck of the _Constance Colfax_. Janice,
still lugging her suitcase, shot up the dock toward the expressman,
leaving Jason, slack-jawed and well-nigh breathless.

"Jefers-pelters! What a flyaway critter she is!" the man muttered. "I
don't see whatever we're a-goin' to do with _her_."

Meanwhile Janice got Mr. Dexter's attention immediately. "There's my
trunk right there, Mr. Dexter," she cried. "And here's the check. You
see it--the brown trunk with the brass corners?"

"I see it, Miss. All right. I'll git it up to Jason's some time this
arternoon."

"Oh, Mr. Dexter!" she cried, shaking her head at him, but smiling, too.
"That will not do at all! I want to unpack it at once. I need some of
the things in it, for I've been traveling two days. Can't you take it on
your first load?"

"Wa-al--I might," confessed Dexter, looking her over with a quizzical
smile. "But us'ally the Days ain't in no hurry."

"Then this is one Day who _is_ in a hurry," she said, briefly. "What is
your charge for delivering the trunk, sir?"

"Oh--'bout a quarter, Miss. And gimme that suitcase, too. 'Twon't cost
ye no more, and I'll git 'em there before Jason and you reach the house.
Poketown is a purty slow old place, Miss," the man added, with a wink
and a chuckle, "but I kin see the _days_ are going to move faster, now
you have arove in town. Don't you fear; your trunk'll be there--'nless
Josephus, here, busts a leg!"

Quite stunned, Uncle Jason had not moved from his tracks. "Now we're all
right, sir," said the girl, cheerily, taking his arm and by her very
touch seeming to galvanize a little life into his scarecrow figure.
"Shall we go home?"

"Eh? Wal! Ef ye say so, Janice," replied Mr. Day, weakly.

They started up the main street of Poketown, Janice accommodating her
step to that of her uncle. Mr. Day was not one given to idle chatter;
but the girl did not notice his silence in her interest in all she saw.

It was a beautiful, shady way, with the hill not too steep for comfort.
And some of the dwellings set in the midst of their terraced old lawns,
were so beautiful! It was the beauty of age, however; there did not seem
to be a single _new_ thing in Poketown.

Even the scant display of goods in the shop windows had lain there until
they were dust-covered, sun-burned, and flyspecked. The signs over the
store doors were tarnished.

They came to the lane that led up the hill away from High Street, and on
which Uncle Jason sa