Lily sat between them on the plush seat with her hair combed and pinned up into a knot under a small blue hat which was Jewel’s exchange for the pretty one. She wore a traveling dress made out of part of Mrs. Watts’s last summer’s mourning. Pink straps glowed through. She had a purse and a Bible and a warm cake in a box, all in her lap.

Aimee Slocum had been getting the outgoing mail stamped and bundled. She stood in the aisle of the coach now, tears shaking from her eyes.

“Good-bye, Lily,” she said. She was the one who felt things.

“Good-bye, silly,” said Lily.

“Oh, dear, I hope they get our telegram to meet her in Ellisville!” Aimee cried sorrowfully, as she thought how far away it was. “And it was so hard to get it all in ten words, too.”

“Get off, Aimee, before the train starts and you break your neck,” said Mrs. Watts, all settled and waving her dressy fan gaily. “I declare, it’s so hot, as soon as we get a few miles out of town I’m going to slip my corset down.”

“Oh, Lily, don’t cry down there. Just be good, and do what they tell you—it’s all because they love you.” Aimee drew her mouth down. She was backing away, down the aisle.

Lily laughed. She pointed across Mrs. Carson’s bosom out the window toward a man. He had stepped off the train and just stood there, by himself. He was a stranger and wore a cap.

“Look,” she said, laughing softly through her fingers.

“Don’t—look,” said Mrs. Carson very distinctly, as if, out of all she had ever spoken, she would impress these two solemn words upon Lily’s soft little brain. She added, “Don’t look at anything till you get to Ellisville.”

Outside, Aimee Slocum was crying so hard she almost ran into the stranger. He wore a cap and was short and seemed to have on perfume, if such a thing could be.

“Could you tell me, madam,” he said, “where a little lady lives in this burg name of Miss Lily Daw?” He lifted his cap—and he had red hair.

“What do you want to know for?” Aimee asked before she knew it.

“Talk louder,” said the stranger. He almost whispered, himself.

“She’s gone away—she’s gone to Ellisville!”

“Gone?”

“Gone to Ellisville!”

“Well, I like that!” The man stuck out his bottom lip and puffed till his hair jumped.

“What business did you have with Lily?” cried Aimee suddenly.

“We was only going to get married, that’s all,” said the man.

Aimee Slocum started to scream in front of all those people. She almost pointed to the long black box she saw lying on the ground at the man’s feet. Then she jumped back in fright.