and wondering whether she had done right or not, and
whether her father would have been disappointed in her, "ashamed of
her," as her stepmother had said. Somehow Jane had made her feel that
he would not, and she was more light-hearted than she had been for many
a day.

Late in the afternoon she began to wonder what Tinsdale would be like.
In the shabby handbag was her ticket to Tinsdale and eight dollars and a
half in change. It made her feel richer than she had ever felt in her
life, although she had never been stinted as to pocket money. But this
was her very own, for her needs, and nobody but herself to say how she
should spend either it or her time.

Little towns came in sight and passed, each one with one or two
churches, a schoolhouse, a lot of tiny houses. Would Tinsdale look this
way? How safe these places seemed, yet lonely, too! Still, no one would
ever think of looking for her in a lonely little village.

They passed a big brick institution, and she made out the words, "State
Asylum," and shuddered inwardly as she thought of what Jane had told her
about the morning paper. Suppose they should hunt her up and _put her in
an insane asylum_, just to show the world that it had not been their
fault that she had run away from her wedding! The thought was appalling.
She dropped her head on her hand with her face toward the window and
tried to pretend she was asleep and hide the tears that would come, but
presently a boy came in at the station with a big basket and she bought
a ham sandwich and an apple. It tasted good. She had not expected that
it would. She decided that she must have been pretty hungry and then
fell to counting her money, aghast that the meager supper had made such
a hole in her capital. She must be very careful. This might be all the
money she would have for a very long time, and there was no telling what
kind of an impossible place she was going to. She might have to get away
as eagerly as she had come. Jane was all right, but that was not saying
that her mother and sisters would be.

It was growing dark, and the lights were lit in the car. All the little
Italian babies had been given drinks of water, and strange things to
eat, and tumbled to sleep across laps and on seats, anywhere they would
stick. They looked so funny and dirty and pitiful with their faces all
streaked with soot and molasses candy that somebody had given them. The
mother looked tired and greasy and the father was fat and d