Farrar and I are not imaginative; we did not picture to ourselves any particular type for the girl we were going to meet, we were simply doing our best to get to the station before the train.  We jumped from the wagon and were watching the people file out of the car, and I noticed that more than one paused to look back over their shoulders as they reached the door.  Then came a maid with hand-bag and shawls, and after her a tall young lady.  She stood for a moment holding her skirt above the grimy steps, with something of the stately pose which Richter has given his Queen Louise on the stairway, and the light of the reflector fell full upon her.  She looked around expectantly, and recognizing Mrs. Cooke’s maid, who had stepped forward to relieve hers of the shawls, Miss Thorn greeted her with a smile which greatly prepossessed us in her favor.

“How do you do, Jennie?” she said.  “Did any one else come?”

“Yes, Miss Marian,” replied Jennie, abashed but pleased,—­“these gentlemen.”

Farrar and I introduced ourselves, awkwardly enough, and we both tried to explain at once how it was that neither Mr. nor Mrs. Cooke was there to meet her.  Of course we made an absolute failure of it.  She scanned our faces with a puzzled expression for a while and then broke into a laugh.

“I think I understand,” she said; “they are having the house-warming.”

“She’s first-rate at guessing,” said Farrar to me as we fled precipitately to see that the trunks were hoisted into the basket.  Neither of us had much presence of mind as we climbed into the wagon, and, what was even stranger, could not account for the lack of it.  Miss Thorn was seated in the corner; in spite of the darkness I could see that she was laughing at us still.

“I feel very badly that I should have taken you away from the dance,” we heard her say.

“We don’t dance,” I answered clumsily, “and we were glad to come.”

“Yes, we were glad to come,” Farrar chimed in.

Then we relapsed into a discomfited silence, and wished we were anywhere else.  But Miss Thorn relieved the situation by laughing aloud, and with such a hearty enjoyment that instead of getting angry and more mortified we began to laugh ourselves, and instantly felt better.  After that we got along famously.  She had at once the air of good fellowship and the dignity of a woman, and she seemed to understand Farrar and me perfectly.  Not once did she take us over our heads, though she might have done so with ease, and we knew this and were thankful.  We began to tell her about Mohair and the cotillon, and of our point of observation from the Florentine galleried porch, and she insisted she would join us there.  By the time we reached the house we were thanking our stars she had come.  Mrs. Cooke came out under the port-cochere to welcome her.

“Unfortunately there is no one to dance with you, Marian,” she said; “but if I had not by chance gone through your uncle’s pockets, there would have been no one to meet you.”