"You'll surely wait for me afterwards?"
"Oh, yes."
She followed Eleanor to the door, and watched her pass the corner. The emotion which shone from her eyes was sufficiently intense to explain even a greater metamorphosis than that which had changed Margie Ginter into Mrs. Bent.
Almost at once the piano, towering high above the horses which drew it, lumbered in from the other direction. All had turned out well.
CHAPTER III A WALTONVILLE COMMENCEMENT AND AN INQUISITIVE STRANGER
The railroad, a fifty-mile spur of the Baltimore & Northern, ran to Waltonville, but not beyond it. Miles away across the beautiful valley which lay spread before Mrs. Bent's little house, the main line was dimly discernible by the long trail of white smoke visible now and then against the blue hills, and, when the wind blew from the west, by the faint, distant roar of flying trains. The officials of the B. & N. had originally intended that it should pass through Waltonville, and the reason for their change of mind was an unusual one. The railroad engineer brought his family to Waltonville for the summer, and Waltonville received them as it did all unintroduced strangers. The engineer and his wife and children did not exist for Waltonville. Therefore, the railroad swerved far away to another village which was reported as larger, more important, and approached with less expense, and in the course of a few years Waltonville was made the terminus of a branch road leaving the main line at a junction fifty miles away.
Its loss was, however, not unmixed with gain; it remained as it was, unaspiring, peaceful, still, and beautiful. The students, the Commencement visitors, the agents for commercial firms, the few persons haled to court, traveled from the east and south on the B. & N. Those who came from other directions either made a wide détour by rail or approached, as they had approached from time immemorial, by horseback or carriage.