“All my things are in the satchel. Big Bridget put them there. She told me—I forget what she did tell me. Bob tucked the satchel away.”
“I’ll find it.”
By this time the upper berth lady was again looking over its edge and airing her views on the subject:
“The idea! If I’d known I was going to be pushed off up here and that chit of a child put in below I’d have made a row.”
“I believe you,” said Red Kimono, calmly. “Yet I suppose this lower bed must have been taken and paid for in the little one’s name.”
“’Xcuse me, Mrs. Kimono. I’m not a little one. I’m quite, quite big. I’m Josephine.”
“And is there nobody on this train belonging to you, Miss Josie?” asked Mrs. Red Kimono.
“Josephine. My mamma doesn’t like nicknames. There’s nobody but the expressman. And everybody. Doctor Mack said to my mamma that everybody would take care of me. I heard him. It is the truth. Doctor Mack is a grown-up gentleman. Gentlemen never tell wrong stories. Do they?” asked the little girl.
“They ought not, surely. And we ought not to be talking now. It is in the middle of the night, and all the tired people want to sleep. Are you comfortable? Then curl down here with Rudanthy and shut your eyes. If you happen to wake again, and feel lonely, just come across to my berth and creep in with me. There’s room in it for two when one of the two is so small. Good-night. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Red Kimono ceased whispering, pressed a kiss on the round cheek, and disappeared. She was also travelling alone, but felt not half so lonely since she had comforted the little child, who was again asleep, but smiling this time, and who awoke only when a lady in a plain gray costume pulled the curtains apart and touched her lightly on the shoulder. This was “Red Kimono” in her day attire.