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Tilly felt a movement of impatience; there, after all her cautions, there was her mother helping an old woman, an utterly strange old woman, to pile a bird-cage on a bandbox surmounting a bag. The old woman was clad in a black alpaca frock, made with the voluminous draperies of years ago, but with the uncreased folds and the brilliant gloss of a new gown. She wore a bonnet of a singular shape, unknown to fashion, but made out of good velvet. Beneath the bonnet (which was large) appeared a little, round, agitated old face, with bobbing white curls and white teeth set a little apart in the mouth, a defect that brought a kind of palpitating frankness into the expression.

“Now, who HAS mother picked up now?” thought Tilly. “Well, praise be, she hasn’t a baby, anyhow!”

She could hear the talk between the two; for the old woman being deaf, Mrs. Louder elevated her voice, and the old woman, herself, spoke in a high, thin pipe that somehow reminded Tilly of a lost lamb.

“That’s just so,” said Mrs. Louder, “a body cayn’t help worrying over a sick child, especially if they’re away from you.”

“Solon and Minnie wouldn’t tell me,” bleated the other woman, “they knew I’d worry. Kinder hurt me they should keep things from me; but they hate to have me upset. They are awful good children. But I suspicioned something when Alonzo kept writing. Minnie, she wouldn’t tell me, but I pinned her down and it come out, Eliza had the grip bad. And, then, nothing would do but I must go to her–why, Mrs. Louder, she’s my child! But they wouldn’t hark to it. ‘Fraid to have me travel alone—-“

“I guess they take awful good care of you,” said Mrs. Louder; and she sighed.

“Yes, ma’am, awful.” She, too, sighed.

As she talked her eyes were darting about the room, eagerly fixed on every new arrival.

“Are you expecting anyone, Mrs. Higbee?” said Jane. They seemed, at least, to know each other by name, thought Tilly; it was amazing the number of people mother did know!

“No,” said Mrs. Higbee, “I–I–fact is, I’m kinder frightened. I–fact is, Mrs. Louder, I guess I’ll tell you, though I don’t know you very well; but I’ve known about you so long–I run away and didn’t tell ’em. I just couldn’t stay way from Liza. And I took the bird–for the children; and it’s my bird, and I was ‘fraid Minnie would forget to feed it and it would be lonesome. My children are awful kind good children, but they don’t understand. And if Solon sees me he will want me to go back. I know I’m dretful foolish; and Solon and Minnie will make me see I am. There won’t be no good reason for me to go, and I’ll have to stay; and I feel as if I should FLY–Oh, massy sakes! there’s Solon coming down the street—-“

She ran a few steps in half a dozen ways, then fluttered back to her bag and her cage.

“Well,” said Mrs. Louder, drawing herself up to her full height, “you SHALL go if you want to.”

“Solon will find me, he’ll know the bird-cage! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!”

Then a most unexpected helper stepped upon the stage. What is the mysterious instinct of rebellion to authority that, nine cases out of ten, sends us to the aid of a fugitive? Tilly, the unconscious despot of her own mother, promptly aided and abetted Solon’s rebel mother in her flight.

“Not if I carry it,” said she, snatching up the bird-cage; “run inside that den where they sell refreshments; he’ll see ME and go somewhere else.”

It fell out precisely as she planned. They heard Solon demanding a lady with a bird-cage of the agent; they heard the agent’s reply, given with official indifference, “There she is, inside.” Directly, Solon, a small man with an anxious mien, ran into the waiting-room, flung a glance of disappointment at Tilly, and ran out again.