Billy smiled and reddened.
“Perhaps—but I don't think to-day will strike the balance,” she retorted, backing toward the door. “This young lady's name is 'Mary Jane'; and I'll leave it to you to find anything very masculine in that!”
It was a short drive from Mrs. Carleton's Commonwealth Avenue home to the South Station, and Peggy made as quick work of it as the narrow, congested cross streets would allow. In ample time Billy found herself in the great waiting-room, with John saying respectfully in her ear:
“The man says the train comes in on Track Fourteen, Miss, an' it's on time.”
At twenty-nine minutes past four Billy left her seat and walked down the train-shed platform to Track Number Fourteen. She had pinned the pink now to the outside of her long coat, and it made an attractive dash of white against the dark-blue velvet. Billy was looking particularly lovely to-day. Framing her face was the big dark-blue velvet picture hat with its becoming white plumes.
During the brief minutes' wait before the clanging locomotive puffed into view far down the long track, Billy's thoughts involuntarily went back to that other watcher beside a train gate not quite five years before.
“Dear Uncle William!” she murmured tenderly. Then suddenly she laughed—so nearly aloud that a man behind her gave her a covert glance from curious eyes. “My! but what a jolt I must have been to Uncle William!” Billy was thinking.
The next minute she drew nearer the gate and regarded with absorbed attention the long line of passengers already sweeping up the narrow aisle between the cars.
Hurrying men came first, with long strides, and eyes that looked straight ahead. These Billy let pass with a mere glance. The next group showed a sprinkling of women—women whose trig hats and linen collars spelled promptness as well as certainty of aim and accomplishment. To these, also, Billy paid scant attention. Couples came next—the men anxious-eyed, and usually walking two steps ahead of their companions; the women plainly flustered and hurried, and invariably buttoning gloves or gathering up trailing ends of scarfs or boas.
The crowd was thickening fast, now, and Billy's eyes were alert. Children were appearing, and young women walking alone. One of these wore a bunch of violets. Billy gave her a second glance. Then she saw a pink—but it was on the coat lapel of a tall young fellow with a brown beard; so with a slight frown she looked beyond down the line.