The Gentleman from Indiana - Page 133/212

Mr. Parker, very nervous himself, felt the old man's elbow trembling

against his own as the great engine, reeking in the mist, and sending

great clouds of white vapor up to the sky, rushed by them, and came to a

standstill beyond the platform.

Fisbee and the foreman made haste to the nearest vestibule, and were

gazing blankly at its barred approaches when they heard a tremulous laugh

behind them and an exclamation.

"Upstairs and downstairs and in my lady's chamber! Just behind you, dear."

Turning quickly, Parker beheld a blushing and smiling little vision, a

vision with light-brown hair, a vision enveloped in a light-brown rain-

cloak and with brown gloves, from which the handles of a big brown

travelling bag were let fall, as the vision disappeared under the cotton

umbrella, while the smitten Judd Bennett reeled gasping against the

station.

"Dearest," the girl cried to the old man, "you were looking for me between

the devil and deep sea--the parlor-car and the smoker. I've given up

cigars, and I've begun to study economy, so I didn't come on either."

There was but this one passenger for Plattville; two enormous trunks

thundered out of the baggage car onto the truck, and it was the work of no

more than a minute for Judd to hale them to the top of the omnibus (he

well wished to wear them next his heart, but their dimensions forbade the

thought), and immediately he cracked his whip and drove off furiously

through the mud to deposit his freight at the Briscoes'. Parker, Mr.

Fisbee, and the new editor-in-chief set forth, directly after, in one of

the waiting cut-unders, the foreman in front with the driver, and holding

the big brown bag on his knees in much the same manner he would have held

an alien, yet respected, infant.