Then Madeleine reached up and clasped Jane's hand. "We shall be friends," she said earnestly; "I've never met any one whom I've liked quite in the same way that I like you. Do let us see all that we can of one another."
"I want to, I know," Jane answered.
The stage driver was already remounting his seat.
"Au revoir," Madeleine cried, just as Lorenzo had done.
"Just for a little," Jane called back, and then she was alone in the stage, rattling down the long, green-arched street to its furthest end.
"There goes the stage," Katie Croft called out to her mother-in-law in the next room. "Now Miss Drew'll have her niece and be able to get away for a little rest."
"If it was a daughter-in-law, she couldn't, maybe," said a voice from the next room; "the rest is going to be poor, sweet Susan Ralston's, anyhow. Oh, my Susan Ralston, my dear, sweet Susan Ralston, my loving Susan Ralston, where I used to go and call!"
"Why, Mother, you haven't so much as thought of Mrs. Ralston for years." Katie's voice was very sharp.
"Nobody knows what I think of," wailed the voice from the other room. "My thoughts is music. They fly and sing all night. They sing Caw, Caw, and they fly like feathers."
Katie Croft walked over and shut the door with a bang. Katie was almost beside herself.