“I’ve had her from a pup—­she’s a faithful beast.  Hello, there they come.  Gee, Jefferson, but you’ve grown!  You are almost as big as your name.”

Jefferson was the negro boy who drove the horses.  There was a great splashing of red mud as he drew up.  The flaps of the surrey closed it in.

Jefferson’s eyes were twinkling beads as he greeted his master.  “I sure is glad to see you, Mr. Randy.  Miss Caroline, she say there was another gemp’mun?”

“He’s here—­Major Prime.  You run in there and look after his bags.”

Randy unbuttoned the flaps and gave a gasp of astonishment: 

“Becky—­Becky Bannister!”

In another moment she was out on the platform, and he was holding her hands, protesting in the meantime, “You’ll get wet, my dear——­”

“Oh, I want to be rained on, Randy.  It’s so heavenly to have you home.  I caught Jefferson on the way down.  I didn’t even wait to get my hat.”

[Illustration:  “It’s so heavenly to have you home.”]

She did not need a hat.  It would have hidden her hair.  George Dalton, watching her from the door, decided that he had never seen such hair, bronze, parted on the side, with a thick wave across the forehead, it shaded eyes which were clear wells of light.

She was a little thing with a quality in her youth which made one think of the year at the spring, of the day at morn, of Botticelli’s Simonetta, of Shelley’s lark, of Wordsworth’s daffodils, of Keats’ Eve of St. Agnes—­of all the lovely radiant things of which the poets of the world have sung——­

Of course Dalton did not think of her in quite that way.  He knew something of Browning and little of Keats, but he had at least the wit to discern the rareness of her type.

As for the rest, she wore faded blue, which melted into the blue of the mists, stubbed and shabby russet shoes and an air of absorption in her returned soldier.  This absorption Dalton found himself subconsciously resenting.  Following an instinctive urge, he emerged, therefore, from his chrysalis of ill-temper, and smiled upon a transformed universe.

“My raincoat, Kemp,” he said, and strode forth across the platform, a creature as shining and splendid as ever trod its boards.

Becky, beholding him, asked, “Is that Major Prime?”

“No, thank Heaven.”

Jefferson, steering the Major expertly, came up at this moment.  Then, splashing down the red road whirled the gorgeous limousine.  There were two men on the box.  Kemp, who had been fluttering around Dalton with an umbrella, darted into the waiting-room for the bags.  The door of the limousine was opened by the footman, who also had an umbrella ready.  Dalton hesitated, his eyes on that shabby group by the mud-stained surrey.  He made up his mind suddenly and approached young Paine.

“We can take one of you in here.  You’ll be crowded with all of those bags.”