a thread of casual favour.

For a time she rested serenely in the dark--only half undressed in
view of the ever-possible accident--cheek to pillow, face turned to
the window that endlessly screened the sweeping mysteries of that dark
glimmering countryside, quite resigned so to while away the night,
persuaded it was inevitable that one with so much to ponder should be
unable to sleep a wink.

Deliberately, to prove this point, she closed her eyes. . . .

And immediately opened them to broad daylight, revealing, through that
magic casement, the outskirts of a considerable city, street after
suburban street wheeling away like spokes from a restless hub.

A simultaneous pounding on the door warned her she had but ten minutes
in which to dress; no time to grasp the substance of a dream come
true, no time even to prepare a confident attitude with which to
salute the fairy godparents of her social debut--time only to
struggle into her outer garments and muster a half-timid, deprecatory
smile for those whom she was to find awaiting her in the corridor,
impatient to be off, none too amiably conscious of foregone beauty
sleep, accepting their protegee with a matter-of-course manner almost
disillusioning.

"Got to hurry, you know," Savage informed her brusquely; "only
twenty minutes to snatch a bite before our train leaves for the
Island."

They hurried down a platform thronged with fellow passengers similarly
haunted by the seven devils of haste, beneath a high glazed but opaque
vault penning an unappetizing atmosphere composed in equal parts of a
stagnant warm air and stale steam, into a restaurant that had patently
been up all night, through the motions of swallowing alternate
mouthfuls of denatured coffee and dejected rolls, up again and out and
down another platform--at last into the hot and dusty haven of a
parlour-car.

Then impressions found time for readjustment. The journey promised,
and turned out, to be by no means one of unalloyed delights. The early
morning temper discovered by Mrs. Standish offered chill comfort to
one like Sally, saturate with all the emotions of a stray puppy
hankering for a friendly pat. Ensconced in the chair beside her
charge, the patroness swung it coolly aside until little of her was
visible but the salient curve of a pastel-tinted cheek and buried her
nose in a best-selling novel, ignoring overtures analogous to the
wagging of a propitiatory tail. While Savage, in the chair beyond