be sure, we almost did get
left that time we all (except Aunt Julia) got off and went to pick
flowers while our train waited for a freight to go by. But we didn't get
quite left, and we did catch it. (Dear Tilly says we could have caught
it, anyway, even if it had started, and that we shouldn't have had to
walk very fast, at that! Tilly does make heaps of fun of all our trains
except the fast ones on the main lines. And I don't know as I wonder,
only I'd never tell her that, of course--that is, I _wouldn't_ have told
her before, perhaps.)

"Well, where was I? Oh, I know--on the sidetrack. (I had to laugh here,
for it occurred to me that that was just where I was in the story--on a
sidetrack! I'm not telling what I started out to tell at all. It's lucky
we can each take all the room we want, though, in these Chronicles.)

"Well, I'll tell it now, really, though I'm still so shaky and excited
my hand trembles awfully. It was in the night, a little past twelve
o'clock that it happened. I was lying in my berth above Elsie's, and was
wide-awake. I had been thinking about Father. He has been such a dear
all the way. I was thinking what a big, big dear he was, when IT
happened.

"Yes, I put IT in capitals on purpose, and I reckon you would, if
suddenly the car you were riding in began to sway horribly and bump up
and down, and then stop right off short with a bang that flung you into
the middle of the aisle! And that's what ours did.

"For a minute, of course, I was too dazed to know what had happened. But
the next moment I heard a scared voice wail right in my ear:

"'Girls, it's an accident--I know it's an accident! I told you we should
have an accident--and to think I took off my shoes to-night for the very
first time!'

"I knew then. It was Bertha, and it was an accident. And, do you know?
I'm ashamed to tell it, but the first thing I did right there and then
was to laugh--it seemed so funny about Bertha's shoes, and to hear her
say her usual 'I told you so!' But the next minute I began to realize
what it all really meant, and I didn't laugh any more.

"All around me, by that time, were frightened cries and shouts, and I
was so worried for Father and all the rest. I struggled, and tried to
get up; and then I heard Father's voice call: 'Genevieve, Genevieve,
where are you? Are you all right?' Oh, nobody will ever know how good
that dear voice sounded to me!

"We called for Aunt Julia, then, and for the girls; but