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“I’m so glad you didn’t try to get off,” said the girl gravely: “you might have been terribly hurt. Won’t you come into the compartment just here with my aunt and me? She is an invalid, and we are all by ourselves; you need not see any one else. Let me take your pitcher.” And Miss Spring, glad to find so kind a friend in such an emergency, followed her.

There were two sofas running the length of the compartment, and on one of these was lying a most kind and refined-looking woman, with gray hair and the sweetest eyes. Poor Aunt Catherine somehow felt comforted at once; and when this new friend looked up wonderingly, and her niece tried to keep from even smiling while she told the story discreetly, she began to laugh at herself heartily.

“I know you want to laugh, dear,” said she. “It’s ridiculous, only I’m so afraid they’ll be worried about me at home. If anybody had only seen me as I rode off, and could tell them!”

Miss Ashton had not laughed so much in a long time, the fun of the thing outweighed the misery, and they were all very merry for a few minutes. There was something straightforward and homelike and pleasant in Miss Catherine’s face, and the other travellers liked her at once, as she did them. They were going to a town nearer the mountains for the summer. Miss Ashton was just getting over a severe illness; and they asked about the place to which they were bound, but Miss Spring could tell them little about it.

“The country is beautiful around here, isn’t it?” said Alice West, when there was a pause: the shadows were growing long, and the sun was almost ready to go down among the hills. “Brookton! didn’t you notice an advertisement of some one who wanted boarders there, aunty? You thought it was hardly near enough to the mountains, didn’t you? but this is beautiful.”

“Why, that was my notice,” said Miss Spring; and then she stopped, and flushed a little. I believe, if she had thought a moment, she would not have spoken; but Miss Ashton saw the hesitation and the flush.

“I wish I were going to spend the summer with you,” said she by and by, in her frank, pleasant way. And Miss Catherine said, “I wish you were,” and sighed quietly; she felt wonderfully at home with these strangers, and, in spite of her annoyance when she thought of her guests, she was enjoying herself. “I live all alone,” she said once, in speaking of something else; and, if she had been alone with Miss Ashton, I think she would have told her something of her troubles, of which we know her heart was very full. Everybody found it easy to talk to Miss Ashton, but there was the niece; and Miss Catherine, like most elderly women of strong character who live alone, was used to keeping her affairs to herself, and felt a certain pride in being uncommunicative.

When the conductor looked in, with surprise at seeing the new passenger, Alice West asked him the fare to Hillsfield, the next station; and, after paying him, gave as much money to Miss Spring, who took it reluctantly, though there was nothing else to be done.

“I’m sure I don’t know how to thank you,” said she; “but you must tell me how to direct to you and I will send the money back tomorrow.”

“No, indeed!” said the girl: but Miss Spring looked unhappy; and Miss Ashton, with truer kindness, gave her the direction, saying,–

“Please tell us how you found your friends at home; because Alice and I will wish very much to know what they thought.”

“You have been so kind; I sha’n’t forget it,” said Miss Catherine, with a little shake in her voice that was not made by the cars.

Alice had taken from her travelling-bag a little white hood which she had seen in a drawer that morning after her trunk was locked and strapped, and had put it over Miss Catherine’s head. It was very becoming, and it did not look at all unsuitable for an elderly woman to wear in the evening, just from one station to the next. And she was going to wrap the cream-pitcher in some paper, when Miss Catherine said softly,–