Pretty soon she came out and took a seat. She felt in her waist to see that her five dollars was still pinned to her underslip, with Mrs. Putney’s postcard picture of Edgewater Park. The card and Lena’s coral beads were lucky, she thought, breathing a little easier as the train rolled along. She was still scared, but she felt light-headed and gay, the way Papa did when he was going away from home. She thought she must be like Papa, the kind of person who was always glad going away instead of coming home. She looked out the window, feeling the other self inside her, the self that had no feelings and could never be hurt, coming out stronger and stronger, looking at the fringe of London Junction and the beginnings of Milltown with calm, almost without remembrance. In a backyard past Milltown Village, a woman was chopping off the head of a chicken, and Marcia thought if Florrie was along this would make her cry. She thought she ought to cry just a little, out of loyalty to Florrie. She’d come back and get Florrie someday, just like she promised. But maybe Florrie would never leave Papa. It was as if Florrie would always have to protect Papa instead of the other way round.

The porter came in with the last call for lunch, and passengers began moving forward. Marcia remembered she had no lunch, but she didn’t know how you acted in a diner. When a boy came through with fruit and candy she asked him how much each of his wares was. Nothing was under ten cents. As he was about Marcia’s age, she did not want him to think she couldn’t afford this, so she asked him how much lunch in the diner would be.

“You don’t want to spend all that money,” said the boy, a thin freckled boy with several teeth missing. “Look. Take this, and don’t say anything.”

He handed her a pear and an apple, and dodged hastily down the aisle before the conductor could catch him at this unprofessional conduct. A young lady came in looking, Marcia saw at once, as a young lady on her own should look. She was not pretty like Lena but she looked like pictures in magazines. She had black hair parted in the middle and drawn sleekly back to fine little snail-like coils on the back of her neck, from ear to ear. Marcia studied this coiffure intently, pretending to read the want ads in the Leader at the same time. “Mother’s Helper—oh, no! Secretary—maybe, why not? Telephone Operator—that ought to be easy. Be a Trained Nurse—maybe. Cash Girl in Large Department Store—maybe …” Presently Marcia went back to the women’s room and undid her long braids. In the face of some urgent pounding on the door, she finally got her hair twisted up into what seemed a similar set of coils. She looked at least sixteen, she thought with pleasure. She rubbed some red paper on her cheeks the way Lena and Mary Evelyn did, but an old lady stared at her so sternly she hastily wiped it off the minute she got back to her seat.