Meantime the New York train, after panting and snorting several times to give notice that the twenty minutes were about up, suddenly puffed and rumbled its way out from the depot, and left Ester obeying orders, that is, sitting in the corner where she had been placed by Mr. Newton—­being still outwardly, but there was in her heart a perfect storm of vexation.  “This comes of mother’s absurd fussiness in insisting upon putting me in Mr. Newton’s care, instead of letting me travel alone, as I wanted to,” she fumed to herself.  “Now we shall not get into New York until after six o’clock!  How provoking!”

“How provoking this is!” Mr. Newton exclaimed, re-echoing her thoughts as he bustled in, red with haste and heat, and stood penitently before her.  “I hadn’t the least idea it would take so long to go to the post-office.  I am very sorry!”

“Well,” he continued, recovering his good humor, notwithstanding Ester’s provoking silence, “what can’t be cured must be endured, Miss Ester; and it isn’t as bad as it might be, either.  We’ve only to wait an hour and a quarter.  I’ve some errands to do, and I’ll show you the city with pleasure; or would you prefer sitting here and looking around you?”

“I should decidedly prefer not running the chance of missing the next train,” Ester answered very shortly.  “So I think it will be wiser to stay where I am.”

In truth Mr. Newton endured the results of his own carelessness with too much complacency to suit Ester’s state of mind; but he took no notice of her broadly-given hint further than to assure her that she need give herself no uneasiness on that score; he should certainly be on time.  Then he went off, looking immensely relieved; for Mr. Newton frankly confessed to himself that he did not know how to take care of a lady.  “If she were a parcel of goods now that one could get stored or checked, and knew that she would come on all right, why—­but a lady.  I’m not used to it.  How easily I could have caught that train, if I hadn’t been obliged to run back after her; but, bless me, I wouldn’t have her know that for the world.”  This he said meditatively as he walked down South Street.

The New York train had carried away the greater portion of the throng at the depot, so that Ester and the dozen or twenty people who occupied the great sitting-room with her, had comparative quiet.  The wearer of the condemned brown silk and blue ribbons was still there, and awoke Ester’s vexation still further by seeming utterly unable to keep herself quiet; she fluttered from seat to seat, and from window to window, like an uneasy bird in a cage.  Presently she addressed Ester in a bright little tone:  “Doesn’t it bore you dreadfully to wait in a depot?”

“Yes,” said Ester, briefly and truthfully, notwithstanding the fact that she was having her first experience in that boredom.

“Are you going to New York?”

“I hope so,” she answered, with energy.  “I expected to have been almost there by this time; but the gentleman who is supposed to be taking care of me, had to rush off and stay just long enough to miss the train.”