n finished skewering her hair into a tight knot
she relaxed into friendliness far enough to ask, "Going far yourself?"

"Yes, indeed!" answered Mary, cheerfully, reaching for a towel. "Going
to the Promised Land."

The car gave a sudden lurch, and the woman dropped her comb, as she was
sent toppling against Mary so forcibly that she pinned her to the wall a
moment.

"My!" she exclaimed as she regained her balance. "You don't mean clear
to Palestine!"

"No'm; our promised land is Kentucky," Mary hastened to explain. "Mamma
used to live there, and she's told us so much about the beautiful times
that she used to have in Lloydsboro Valley that it's been the dream of
our life to go there. Since we've been wandering around in the desert,
sort of camping out the way the old Israelites did, we've got into the
way of calling that our promised land."

"Well, I wouldn't count too much on it," advised the woman, sourly.
"They say distance lends enchantment, and things hardly ever turn out as
nice as you think they're going to."

"They do at our house," persisted Mary, with unfailing cheerfulness.
"They generally turn out nicer."

Evidently her companion felt the worse for a night in a sleeper and had
not yet been set to rights with the world by her morning cup of coffee,
for she answered as if Mary's rose-colored view of life so early in the
day irritated her.

"Well, maybe your folks are an exception to the rule," she said,
sharply, "but I know how it is with the world in general. Even old Moses
himself didn't have his journey turn out the way he expected to. He
looked forward to _his_ promised land for forty years, and then didn't
get to put foot on it."

"But he got to go to heaven instead," persisted Mary, triumphantly, "and
that's the best thing that could happen to anybody, especially if you're
one hundred and twenty years old."

There was no answer to this statement, and another passenger appearing
at the dressing-room door just then, the woman remarked something about
two being company and three a crowd, and squeezed past Mary to let the
newcomer take her place.

"_She_ was more crowd than company," remarked Mary confidentially to the
last arrival. "She took up most as much room as two people, and it's
awful the way she looks on the dark side of things."

There was an amused twinkle in the newcomer's eyes. She was a much
younger woman than the one whose place she had taken, and evidently it
was no trial for