so long in their greetings that they were
among the last to pass by the unmet traveller and her pillar. Mrs.
Cherry, seeing that the girl was alone, crossed the platform to her,
the whole collection of Cherrys trailing in her rear.

"Found your Pa yet, dearie?" she asked cheerfully.

"This is the pretty Miss Worth'ton I was telling you about we saw on
the train, Cherry," to her husband, and "This is Helen Louise's Pa," to
Arethusa.

Arethusa managed to acknowledge this introduction, but being in such a
state of mind as she was, she could not make her acknowledgment very
cordial.

Helen Louise was dancing up and down and hanging on to one hand of a
man who could have been nothing else but a close relation to the little
girl, pale blue eyes and pale eyebrows and all. The daughter certainly
favored "her Pa considerable" as her mother had said.

"My Papa," Helen Louise announced happily.

Mrs. Cherry sensed something wrong. She looked at Arethusa more
closely. "You ain't found him? Here, Cherry, you take the children and
the bundles and put them in the waitin'-room and then come straight
back here and we'll help Miss Worth'ton hunt her father."

"I don't want to be put in the waitin'-room!" wailed Helen Louise in
protest, "I want to stay with Papa!"

Mrs. Cherry was reproving her and starting her off in the direction of
the designated depository, when Arethusa interrupted the proceedings.
She did not want Mrs. Cherry, kind as she had been and kind as her
intentions still were to continue being, with her just now. If this was
a fiasco to her Beautiful Dream she needed a few moments to face it
alone. A funny sort of little pride gave her this feeling. She had
talked to Mrs. Cherry so glowingly and at such length about her father
and her Visit.

But Mr. Cherry, till just now silent, had a suggestion to make.
"S'pose," he drawled, "if Miss Worth'ton wants to wait by herself here,
Maria, me and you set inside awhile, and then if she finds she reely
has missed him somehow, I might help her to look him up, mebbe."

Arethusa considered this a decidedly brilliant idea. It relieved her of
present society, which though friendly was irksome, and promised future
comfort.

She rewarded the tall, thin father of Helen Louise with a misty smile.

Mrs. Cherry thought it very good, also. Miss Worth'ton wasn't to worry
a mite now, not a mite. If her father didn't come for her, the Cherry
family would escort her right up to his