“Well, you can see her when you return, and maybe you can plan to stay a day or two with her. Now help me with this little trunk, dear. We have only two hours to prepare your clothes and pack.”
They carried the small steamer trunk down to Dories’ room and by noon it was packed and locked, and, soon after, the expressman came to take both the trunk and the girl to the station.
Dories’ face was flushed and tears were in her eyes when she said good-bye. “I feel so strange and excited, Mother,” she confided, “going out into the world for the very first time, and O, Mumsie, no one knows how I dread being all alone in a boarded-up cottage at a deserted summer resort with such a dreadful old woman.” Dories clung to her mother in little girl fashion as though she hoped at the very last moment she might be told that she need not go, but what she heard was: “Mr. Hanson is in a hurry, dear. He has the trunk on his cart and he’s waiting to help you up on the seat.”
Dories caught her breath in an effort not to cry, kissed her mother and Peter hurriedly, picked up her hand-satchel and darted down the path.
From the high seat she waved and smiled. Then she called in an effort at cheeriness. “Don’t forget, Mrs. Moore, that you promised to take October for a real vacation and not sew a bit after you finish the silk dress.”
“I promise!” the mother called. “Peter and I will just play. Write to us often.”
Mr. Hanson, finding that it was late, drove rapidly to the station, and it was well that he did, for the train was just drawing in when they arrived. Dories quickly purchased a ticket and checked her trunk with the expressman’s help, then, climbing aboard, chose a seat near a window. After all, she found herself quite pleasurably excited. It was such a new experience to be traveling alone. Few of the passengers noticed her and no one spoke. She was glad, as her mother had warned her not to enter into conversation with strangers.
As she watched the flying landscape the girl thought of something her mother had said on the day that she had asked her to answer her Great-Aunt Jane’s letter. “I have a reason, Dori, for really wishing you to go to Siquaw with your aunt,” she had said. What could that reason be? Not until Boston was neared did her speculation cease; then she became conscious of but two emotions, curiosity about her Great-Aunt Jane and a crushing disappointment because she had not been able to let Nann Sibbett know when to meet her.
When the train finally stopped, Dories, feeling very young and very much alone, followed the crowd of passengers into the huge station. She was to meet her aunt in the woman’s waiting room, and she stopped a hurrying porter to inquire where she would find it. Almost timidly she entered the large, comfortably furnished room, then, seeing an elderly woman dressed in black, who was sitting stiffly erect, the girl went toward her as she said diffidently: “Pardon me, but are you my Great-Aunt Jane?” The woman threw back a heavy black crepe veil and her sharp gray eyes gazed up at the girl penetratingly.
“Humph!” was the ungracious reply. “Well, at least you’ve got your father’s eyes. That’s something to be thankful for, but I’ve no doubt that you look like your mother otherwise.”