stern windows. She had had plenty to eat and a big glass of milk
before papa went away, and was neither hungry nor thirsty; but all the
same, it seemed as if that hour were getting very, very long; and every
time the tramp of footsteps was heard on the platform outside she looked
up eagerly.

Then other people began to come in to wait for a train, and whenever the
door opened, the big, dark eyes glanced quickly up with such a hopeful,
wistful gaze, and as each new-comer proved to be a total stranger the
little maiden's disappointment was so evident that some kind-hearted
women came over to speak to her and see if all was right.

But she was as shy as she was lonely, poor little mite, and hung her
head and hugged her doll, and shrank away when they tried to take her in
their arms. All they could get her to say was that she was waiting for
papa and that her name was Jessie Farron.

At last their train came and they had to go, and a new set appeared; and
there were people to meet and welcome them with joyous greetings and
much homely, homelike chatter, and everybody but one little girl seemed
to have friends. It all made Jessie feel more and more lonely, and to
wonder what could have happened to keep papa so very long.

Still she was so loyal, so sturdy a little sentinel at her post. The
kind-hearted baggage-man came in and strove to get her to go with him to
his cottage "a ways up the road," where his wife and little ones were
waiting tea for him; but she shook her head and shrank back even from
him.

Papa had told her to stay there and she would not budge. Papa had placed
his satchel in her charge, and so she kept guard over it and watched
every one who approached.

The sun was getting low and shining broadly in through those western
windows and making a glare that hurt her eyes, and she longed to change
her seat. Between the sun glare and the loneliness her eyes began to
fill with big tears, and when once they came it was so hard to force
them back; so it happened that poor little Jessie found herself crying
despite all her determination to be "papa's own brave daughter."

The windows behind her opened out to the north, and by turning around
she could see a wide, level space between the platform and the hotel,
where wagons and an omnibus or two, and a four-mule ambulance had been
coming and going.

Again and again her eyes had wandered towards this space in hopeful
search for father's coming, only to meet with