"We take on a parlor car at Willowvale," the porter assured Betty, only too sympathetically, for he had been waiting on the woman and her children since the afternoon before. "I'll see that you get a chair then, Miss."
Betty settled herself as comfortably as she could and opened her magazine.
"Read to me?" suggested a little voice, and a sticky hand caressed her skirt timidly.
"Now don't bother the lady," said the mother, trying to pull the child away. "My land, if I ever live to get you children to your grandmother's I'll be thankful! Lottie, stop making scratches on that window sill!"
Lottie pursed her pretty mouth in a pout and drummed her small heels discontentedly against the green plush of the seat.
Betty smiled into the rebellious blue eyes and was rewarded by a sudden, radiant smile. She closed her magazine and found the mother gazing at her with a look almost as childlike in its friendly curiosity as her little daughter's.
"You've got a way with children, haven't you?" said the woman wistfully. "I guess everybody on this train will be glad when we get off. The children have been perfect torments, and Lottie cried half the night. We're none of us used to traveling, and they're so mussed up and dirty I could cry. At home I keep 'em looking as neat as wax. We're going to see my husband's mother, and I know she'll think I started with 'em looking like this."
Betty was far older than many girls her age in some things. She was self-reliant and used to observing for herself, and she had a rich fund of warm and ready sympathy that was essentially practical. She saw that the mother of these lively, untidy children was very young, hardly more than a girl, and worn-out and nervous as a result of taking a long journey with no help and little traveling experience. She was probably, and naturally, anxious that her children should impress their father's mother favorably, and it took little imagination to understand that in her home the young mother had been used to praise for her excellent management. Betty, added to her qualities of leadership and sound judgment, had a decided "knack" with children. In Pineville she had been a general favorite with the little ones, and many a mother had secretly marveled at the girl's ability to control the most headstrong youngster. Now she seized the opportunity presented to help a fellow-passenger.
"Have you had your breakfast?" she asked. "No? I thought not. Well, I had mine before I got on the train. If you are willing to trust the children with me, I'll amuse them while you go into the diner and have a quiet meal. You'll feel much better then."
"Oh, it's been a nightmare!" confided the young mother with a sudden rush of feeling. "Nobody ever told me what it would be like to travel with two children. Lottie upset her milk and Baby spilled her supper on the floor. And people just glare at me and never offer to help. It will be heavenly to eat my breakfast without them, but I feel that I'm imposing on you."