Miss Tripp started up and looked out at the sodden fields and muddy, half-frozen road. Two or three dirty, dispirited-looking men boarded the car and sat down heavily, depositing their tools at their feet. Then the driver and conductor, who had swung the trolley around, and accomplished other official duties incident to the terminal, entered, closing the doors behind them with a professional crash.
Both stared at Miss Tripp who had subsided into her corner again.
"Say, Bill; nice weather for a trolley-ride—heh?" observed the motor-man, shifting an obvious quid of something in his capacious mouth.
"Aw—you shut up, Cho'ley!" growled his superior.
Bill thoughtfully obeyed, drumming with his feet on the floor and pursing up his tobacco-stained lips in an inaudible whistle. Presently he glanced at his big nickel watch and shook his head at the conductor. "A minute an' a half yet, b' mine," he said; "made a quick trip out."
Then he cast another side-long glance at the one lady passenger. "Got carried past, I guess," he suggested with a wink. "Better look sharp for the right street on the way back, Bill."
"You bet," observed the other, with his hand on the bell-rope. "I'm on the job all right."
Elizabeth Brewster was giving her youngest son his supper when her friend Miss Tripp entered her hospitable door.
"Oh, Evelyn!" she began, with an eager air of welcome; "I was hoping you would come home early to-night, Marian Stanford was here this afternoon; she wants to go—— But Evelyn, dear, what ever is the matter? You're as white as a ghost. Don't you feel well?"