“The xylophone! The xylophone!” she cried, looking back and forth from the man to the hissing train. Which was more terrible? The bell began to ring hollowly, and the man was talking.

“Did you say Ellisville? That in the state of Mississippi?” Like lightning he had pulled out a red notebook entitled, “Permanent Facts & Data.” He wrote down something. “I don’t hear well.”

Aimee nodded her head up and down, and circled around him.

Under “Ellis-Ville Miss” he was drawing a line; now he was flicking it with two little marks. “Maybe she didn’t say she would. Maybe she said she wouldn’t.” He suddenly laughed very loudly, after the way he had whispered. Aimee jumped back. “Women!—Well, if we play anywheres near Ellisville, Miss., in the future I may look her up and I may not,” he said.

The bass horn sounded the true signal for the band to begin. White steam rushed out of the engine. Usually the train stopped for only a minute in Victory, but the engineer knew Lily from waving at her, and he knew this was her big day.

“Wait!” Aimee Slocum did scream. “Wait, mister! I can get her for you. Wait, Mister Engineer! Don’t go!”

Then there she was back on the train, screaming in Mrs. Carson’s and Mrs. Watts’s faces.

“The xylophone player! The xylophone player to marry her! Yonder he is!”

“Nonsense,” murmured Mrs. Watts, peering over the others to look where Aimee pointed. “If he’s there I don’t see him. Where is he? You’re looking at One-Eye Beasley.”

“The little man with the cap—no, with the red hair! Hurry!”

“Is that really him?” Mrs. Carson asked Mrs. Watts in wonder. “Mercy! He’s small, isn’t he?”

“Never saw him before in my life!” cried Mrs. Watts. But suddenly she shut up her fan.

“Come on! This is a train we’re on!” cried Aimee Slocum. Her nerves were all unstrung.

“All right, don’t have a conniption fit, girl,” said Mrs. Watts. “Come on,” she said thickly to Mrs. Carson.

“Where are we going now?” asked Lily as they struggled down the aisle.

“We’re taking you to get married,” said Mrs. Watts. “Mrs. Carson, you’d better phone up your husband right there in the station.”

“But I don’t want to git married,” said Lily, beginning to whimper. “I’m going to Ellisville.”

“Hush, and we’ll all have some ice-cream cones later,” whispered Mrs. Carson.

Just as they climbed down the steps at the back end of the train, the band went into “Independence March!”

The xylophone player was still there, patting his foot. He came up and said, “Hello, Toots. What’s up—tricks?” and kissed Lily with a smack, after which she hung her head.

“So you’re the young man we’ve heard so much about,” said Mrs. Watts. Her smile was brilliant. “Here’s your little Lily.”