"As you like," replied Judith, surveying her tall form in its close-fitting blue velveteen. "But I think I shall find the little blonde lady quite talkable. I shall offer to exchange recipes for her shade of hair. I should love to try hers on Marian's."
All of which was pure nonsense really, as neither girl had any idea of speaking to the strangers mentioned.
"I am so glad we wore these gowns," Jane remarked critically. "Most tourists seem to select the very dingiest, drabest, hatefullest old travelling togs, when it is bad enough to look well at the very best, under railroad conditions."
"Yes, that was your happy thought, ma chère. I should have worn the aforesaid hateful thing in tan, if I had not espied your lovely brown velveteen waiting to be donned. That led me to my one best, the blue."
They were all primped and freshened, and now inspecting the result in the long mirror, while the train rumbled and rolled over the hills and valleys leading into the Middle West. Their personally expressed satisfaction at the picture reflected was pardonable, for the two girls, the one light enough to all but blaze, the other dark enough to all but glitter, arms entwined and heads close together, filled the mirror frame with as pretty a study as any artist might wish to paint.
Eventually, out in the car, as the tourists were making their way to the diner, many critical eyes, all of them surely approving, followed the two Wellington girls, Jane and her chum, Judith.
[CHAPTER VII--LOST--A GIRL]
"What a wonderful sleep!" Jane was just stretching out in her bunk. "I suppose Judy is up and dressed, and interviewing the crew." She pulled the little window curtain back cautiously, and sent her half-opened eyes after the fleeting landscape. "And a lovely day. I am glad of that, for even in a train one enjoys fresh, clean weather." She slipped into the dark blue travelling kimono, and slippers to match, in which Jane might make her way to the dressing room without attracting undue attention. Thus attired she put her hand up to give the curtain of the upper, Judy's berth, a signal yank.
"Judith," she called lightly. "Are you up, Judith?"
No answer. Her chum was, she presumed, dressed and out for exercise. With the convenient little dressing bag Jane hurried off to make her day's toilette, being assured she would meet Judith either on the way to, or in the ladies' room.