ff again. Some
official, probably."

A door slammed and a tall figure hurried through the passage, looked in
at the smoking-room, and turned back. "Hullo!" said a familiar voice,
and Jeff's laughing face beamed in upon them.

"Well, well, did you hold up the train?" they cried.

"Thought you'd come along, too, did you?" asked Doctor Forester. "Good!
Glad to have you. I thought it was odd you weren't round to see us off.
Go and surprise the girls. They're just back there, waiting for their
berths."

Jeff hurried eagerly away. A moment later Evelyn, standing in the aisle
beside Charlotte, felt a touch on her arm. She looked up, and met Jeff's
eyes smiling down at her.

"Did you think I'd let you go like that?" he said in her ear.

"I'm afraid I thought you had," she admitted, grown happy in an instant.

"You see, I had an appointment with a man in West Weston on some work
I've been doing for him. After I heard this plan of Doctor Forester's I
had only just time to catch a train and get out there. He kept me so
long I missed the train that would have brought me back in time to see
you off, so I telephoned Chester Agnew to get the flowers for me and
write a card. That was when I was afraid I might not make connections at
all. But when this man I went to see--he's a railroad man--heard what
train I'd wanted to make, he offered to stop it for me. Then it just
came into my mind that I'd join the party, even without an invitation.
Tell me you're not sorry--won't you?"

"Of course I'm not." She allowed him one of her frank looks, and he
smiled back at her.

"We'll have a great day to-morrow," he prophesied. "They'll put on a
Pullman with an observation rear in the morning, and if the weather
holds we'll camp out there for the day. We don't get into Washington
till three in the afternoon, and the scenery all the way down will be
fine. I suppose I'll have to go off now and let you be tucked up. Please
get up bright and early in the morning, will you?"

It was a merry party which entered the dining-car the next morning the
moment the first summons came. The day had risen bright and clear as a
June day could be, and everybody was in a hurry to get out on the
observation platform.

Doctor Forester, sitting opposite Charlotte and Andy at one table,
glanced across at the rest of the party, on the opposite side of the
car, and said in a low voice:

"This is literally a case of speeding the parting guest, isn't it?
Captai