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.