"I'll tell you what to do; you take her seat and see what will happen. It is just here in front of me."
Edna took possession and in a few moments the inquisitive lady looked up and saw her there. She at once hurried over, dropping the papers by the way. "Here here," she cried, "what are you doing in my seat? You must get right up. All my things are here, and I don't want anyone to meddle with them. Get right up."
Edna arose with alacrity while the pretty young lady leaned over and said: "I asked her to sit there while you occupied her friend's seat. I wanted to [31]talk to her, too. It is a poor rule that doesn't work both ways, you know."
The inquisitive lady gave the speaker a withering look and sank to her place with an air of great dignity while Edna returned to her place by Dorothy. In a few minutes Mr. Ramsey returned and both children gave a sigh of relief, though both kept wondering what would have happened if he had found someone in his place, and what more would have happened if he had taken the place the lady now occupied. They soon forgot all this, however, for Mr. Ramsey began to talk to them about the place to which they were going and before they knew it they had reached New York. The pretty young lady gave them a nod and a smile as she passed out, but the inquisitive lady did not look their way at all though she still retained the copy of Life they had lent her.
A taxi-cab whirled them up-town to the hotel where they were to lunch. Mr. Ramsey sent them upstairs to a pretty room, in charge of a neat maid who tidied them up and then took them down to the dining-room where Mr. Ramsey was already seated waiting for them. They felt very grand to be in so fine a place lunching with a gentleman quite like grown-up young ladies, and both wished their sisters could see them.
Lunch over, Mr. Ramsey took them to a large reception room where he stationed them at a window so they could look out on the street. "I think you will be entertained here," he said. "I am [32]obliged to meet a business appointment, but I will be back as soon as I can. In the meantime amuse yourselves as you like, but don't leave the hotel. Here is the key of your room. The elevator boy or one of the chambermaids will show you where it is, if you would rather go there. I am glad there are two of you, for you can't be lonesome with one another. Good-bye." He was off and the two little girls, feeling that they were very small frogs in an immense puddle, sat by the window looking out on the street. Although it was not so warm as it had been earlier in the week, still it was warm enough, and the passers-by looked hot and tired, and after a while the two little girls wearied at looking at the constant stream of people.
"Let's go upstairs," suggested Dorothy.
"All right. Let's," returned Edna.
But just as they were standing timidly looking up and down the corridor trying to determine in which direction to go to find the elevator, a man wearing many brass buttons on his coat, came up to them. "Are you the young ladies in Number 136?" he asked.
Dorothy looked at the key she was holding and on its wooden tag she read the number 136. "Yes, that is the number," she told the man.