ey had all
suddenly discovered a mutual unsuspected tenderness. Milly put her hand
on Rose's shoulder, and Rose did not resent the artless gesture.

'I hope Mr. Twemlow isn't going to miss it,' said Ethel, voicing the
secret apprehension of all.

'I shan't miss it, anyhow,' Rose remarked defiantly.

Scarcely a minute before the train was due, Milly descried Twemlow
coming out of the booking office. They pressed through the crowd towards
him.

'Ah!' he exclaimed genially. 'Here you are! Baggage labelled?'

'We thought you weren't coming, Mr. Twemlow,' Milly said.

'You did? I was kept quite a few minutes at the hotel. You see I only
had to walk across the road.'

'We didn't really think any such thing,' said Leonora.

The conversation fell to pieces.

Then the express, with its two engines, its gilded luncheon-cars, and
its post-office van, thundered in, shaking the platform, and seeming to
occupy the entire station. It had the air of pausing nonchalantly,
disdainfully, in its mighty rush from one distant land of romance to
another, in order to suffer for a brief moment the assault of a puny and
needlessly excited multitude.

'First stop Willesden,' yelled the porters.

'Say, conductor,' said Twemlow sharply, catching the luncheon-car
attendant by the sleeve, 'you've got two seats reserved for
me--Twemlow?'

'Twemlow? Yes, sir.'

'Come along,' he said, 'come along.'

The girls kissed at the steps of the car: 'Good-bye.'

'Well, good-bye all!' said Twemlow. 'I hope to see you again some time.
Say next fall.'

'You surely aren't----' Leonora began.

'Yes,' he resumed quickly, 'I sail Saturday. Must get back.'

'Oh, Mr. Twemlow!' Ethel and Milly complained together.

Rose was standing on the steps. Leonora leaned and kissed the pale girl
madly, pressing her lips into Rose's cheek. Then she shook hands with
Arthur Twemlow.

'Good-bye!' she murmured.

'I guess I shall write to you,' he said jauntily, addressing all three
of them; and Ethel and Milly enthusiastically replied: 'Oh, do!'

The travellers penetrated into the car, and reappeared at a window, one
on either side of a table covered with a white cloth and laid for two
persons.

'Oh, don't I wish I was going!' Milly exclaimed, perceiving them.

Rose was now flushed with triumph. She looked at Twemlow, her lips
moved, she smiled. She was a woman in the world. Then they nodded and
waved hands.

The guard unfurled his green flag, the engin