“You should not be so unreasonably gay,” said Miss Edith to me.  “That may be your way when you get better acquainted with people, but I am afraid some of the family will think that you are in such good spirits because Mrs. Chester now knows that she is a widow.”

“Oh, there is no danger of their thinking anything of that sort,” I said.  “Don’t you suppose they will attribute my good spirits to the fact that the man who took my bicycle to Waterton brought back my big valise, so that I am enabled to look like a gentleman in the parlor?  And then, as he also brought word that my bicycle will be all ready for me to-morrow, don’t you think it is to be expected of me that I should try to make myself as agreeable as possible on this my last evening with all you good friends?”

She shook her head.  “Those excuses will not pass.  You are abnormally cheerful.  My study of you is extremely interesting, but not altogether satisfactory.”

CHAPTER XV

MISS WILLOUGHBY

It was decreed the next day that I should not leave until after dinner.  They would send me over to Blackburn Station by a cross-road, and I could then reach Waterton in less than an hour.  “There is another good thing about this arrangement,” said Miss Edith, for it was she who announced it to me, “and that is that you can take charge of Amy.”

I gazed at her mystified, and she said, “Don’t you know that Miss Willoughby is going in the same train with you?”

“What!” I exclaimed, far too forcibly.

“Yes.  Her visit ends to-day.  She lives in Waterton.  But why should that affect you so wonderfully?  I am sure you cannot object to an hour in the train with Amy Willoughby.  She may talk a good deal, but you must admit that she talks well.”

“Object!” I said.  “Of course I don’t object.  She talks very well indeed, and I shall be glad to have the pleasure of her company.”

“No one would have thought so,” she said, looking at me with a criticising eye, “who had seen you when you heard she was going.”

“It was the suddenness,” I said.

“Oh yes,” she replied, “and your delicate nerves.”

In my soul I cried out to myself:  “Am I ever to break free from young women!  Is there to be a railroad accident between here and Waterton!  If so, I shall save the nearest old gentleman!”

I believe the Larramies were truly sorry to have me go.  Each one of them in turn told me so.  Mrs. Larramie again said to me, with tears in her eyes, that it made her shudder to think what that home might be if it had not been for me.

Mr. Larramie and Walter promised to get up some fine excursions if I would stay a little longer, and Genevieve made me sit down beside her under a tree.

“I am awfully sorry you are going,” she said.  “I always wanted a gentleman friend, and I believe if you’d stay a little longer you’d be one.  You see, Walter is really too old for me to confide in, and Percy thinks he’s too old—­and that’s a great deal worse.  But you’re just the age I like.  There are so many things I would say to you if you lived here.”