The train was steaming into a station again, but no passenger intruded;
only the guard peeped in, as caretaker, to see if she was safe, as Dick
remarked, when they were moving on again.

"Has he got you under his wing?" asked he.

"The guard has me under his care; ma--mamma asked him to see me safe."
The wistfulness was coming into her eyes again.

"So she has a mother; I thought perhaps she hadn't," thought Dick. Aloud
he said bluffly, "'Tis well to be a girl, to have all made smooth for
one. Now here am I, come all the way from Wenley, turned out of school
because of the measles, and never a creature as much as to say, 'Have
you got a ticket, or money to buy one?'"

"Oh, but they'd not let you come without a ticket," smiled Inna.

"I mean our chums at school, and father at home. Of course my father
knew I was all right about money, because he'd just sent my quarter's
allowance."

"And have they got the measles at your school?"

"Yes: are you afraid of me? Infection, you know."

"Afraid? oh no!"

"Well, if you caught it you'd be all right, your uncle being a doctor. A
doctor at a farm--queer, isn't it, now?" So Dick went skimming from
subject to subject, very like a swallow skimming over the surface of
water after flies and gnats.

"Yes," Inna could but confess it was--very guardedly, though, lest they
might verge upon gossip again.

"But Peggy's the farmer; your uncle has enough to do to look after his
patients. He's a clever fo--man--so clever that some say he's got
medicine on the brain."

Inna's lips were sealed conscientiously; but out of the brief silence
that followed she put the safe question--

"What colour's your kitten?"

"White. Wouldn't you like to take a peep at her?" and good-natured Dick
held the hamper so that she might catch a glimpse of the small
four-legged traveller.

"She's a beauty!"--such was Inna's opinion of her.

"And, according to you, she ought to have a beautiful name. But what of
my sister Jane? I call her Jenny, and Jin; and that reminds me of the
other gin with a g, you know; and that carries me on to trap, and
trapper. I sometimes call her Trapper. That sounds quite romantic, and
carries one away into North American Indian story life. Have you ever
read any North American Indian stories--about Indians, and scalps, and
all that?"

"No," was the decisive, though smiling, reply.

Ah! they were steaming into a station again.

"Lakely at last, and this is my station