“What if I was to give you a pink crêpe de Chine brassière with adjustable shoulder straps?” asked Mrs. Watts grimly.

“Oh, Etta.”

“Well, she needs it,” said Mrs. Watts. “What would they think if she ran all over Ellisville in a petticoat looking like a Fiji?”

“I wish I could go to Ellisville,” said Aimee Slocum luringly.

“What will they have for me down there?” asked Lily softly.

“Oh! lots of things. You’ll have baskets to weave, I expect . . .” Mrs. Carson looked vaguely at the others.

“Oh, yes indeed, they will let you make all sorts of baskets,” said Mrs. Watts; then her voice too trailed off.

“No’m, I’d rather get married,” said Lily.

“Lily Daw! Now that’s just plain stubbornness!” cried Mrs. Watts. “You almost said you’d go and then you took it back!”

“We’ve all asked God, Lily,” said Mrs. Carson finally, “and God seemed to tell us—Mr. Carson, too—that the place where you ought to be, so as to be happy, was Ellisville.”

Lily looked reverent, but still stubborn.

“We’ve really just got to get her there—now!” screamed Aimee Slocum all at once. “Suppose—! She can’t stay here!”

“Oh, no, no, no,” said Mrs. Carson hurriedly. “We mustn’t think that.”

They sat sunken in despair.

“Could I take my hope chest—to go to Ellisville?” asked Lily shyly, looking at them sidewise.

“Why, yes,” said Mrs. Carson blankly.

Silently they rose once more to their feet.

“Oh, if I could just take my hope chest!”

“All the time it was just her hope chest,” Aimee whispered.

Mrs. Watts struck her palms together. “It’s settled!”

“Praise the fathers,” murmured Mrs. Carson.

Lily looked up at them, and her eyes gleamed. She cocked her head and spoke out in a proud imitation of someone—someone utterly unknown.

“O.K.—Toots!”

The ladies had been nodding and smiling and backing away toward the door.

“I think I’d better stay,” said Mrs. Carson, stopping in her tracks. “Where—where could she have learned that terrible expression?”

“Pack up,” said Mrs. Watts. “Lily Daw is leaving for Ellisville on Number One.”

In the station the train was puffing. Nearly everyone in Victory was hanging around waiting for it to leave. The Victory Civic Band had assembled without any orders and was scattered through the crowd. Ed Newton gave false signals to start on his bass horn. A crate full of baby chickens got loose on the platform. Everybody wanted to see Lily all dressed up, but Mrs. Carson and Mrs. Watts had sneaked her into the train from the other side of the tracks.

The two ladies were going to travel as far as Jackson to help Lily change trains and be sure she went in the right direction.