"IT'S HER THAT BOUGHT THE OLD WHITTACKER HOUSE."
"I know it," said the man; he was one of those men who never let Joey or anybody else feel that he had any advantage of him, in even the slightest way.
Just then the train charged madly in beside them.
Lassie, out on the Pullman's rear platform, preparatory to climbing down the steep steps the instant that it should be allowable, saw a well-known figure wrapped in a dark cloak, and gave a little cry of joy—
"Alva! Here I am—all safe."
Then she was enwrapped in the same dark cloak herself, for the space of one warm, all-embracing hug, her friend repeating over and over, "I'm so happy to have you—so happy to have you." And then they moved away through the little group of bystanders, and started up the cinder-path towards the hotel.
"I'm so happy to have you!" Alva exclaimed again, when they were alone. She did not even seem to know that she had said so before.
"It was so good of you to ask me! How did you come to think of it? And oh, Alva, what are you doing here, in this lonely place?"
"It will take me all your visit to properly answer those questions, dear; but I'll tell you this much at once. I asked you because I wanted to have you with me, and because I thought that you and I could help one another a great deal right now. And I am here, dear, because I am the happiest woman that the world has ever seen, and because the greatest happiness that the world has ever known is to be here in a few weeks."