"I believe they are," said Nan seriously, as, with bag clutched tightly in her hand, she started with Bess down the long bustling platform. "Anyway, I want to do my best to help the poor woman. I felt dreadfully sorry for her."
"I feel sorry for everybody who isn't going to Palm Beach," cried Bess gaily, as she looked about her with sparkling eyes. "Oh, Nan, isn't this a lark?"
"You'd better look out," cried Nan sharply, as Bess stepped directly in front of a heaped-up baggage truck that was being trundled heavily down the platform, "or it will be a tragedy instead."
The girls had supposed they had become accustomed to the noise and confusion of a big city during their visit in Chicago, but as they stepped from the great Pennsylvania Station on to the crowded New York street they felt disconcertingly like startled country girls arriving in the city for the first time.
"Goodness! I thought Chicago was awful," whispered Bess in Nan's ear. "But this is worse. What shall we do?"
"That's easy," said Nan, taking command of the situation as usual. "Papa Sherwood told me to take a taxi straight over to the dock and not to speak to any one on the way."
"Well, I think we'll have our choice of taxis," remarked Bess, with a chuckle, as several chauffeurs standing by or sitting in cabs drawn up along the curb espied the well-dressed girls and immediately set up a cry of "Taxi, taxi! Right this way, lady!"
Looking as if she had been used to riding around in taxicabs in strange and noisy cities all her life, Nan walked forward, still clutching the precious bag that held Mrs. Bragley's papers and calmly selected a brilliant yellow cab whose driver opened the door to her respectfully.
Bess followed, all eyes and ears for the noise and confusion of the street. Nan gave instructions to the chauffeur, who touched his cap, slammed the door shut on the girls and sprang to his seat in front.