“It is very kind of you,” said Barbara, “to go out of your way for me. I can’t tell you how I appreciate your goodness. I shall pray for you.”
The driver’s face changed from melancholy to reverence.
“Please remember that,” he said. As he spoke he thought of the great Thackeray’s great words on the preciousness of living on in the heart of one good woman.
Had Barbara been his own mother he could not have been more attentive. He helped her from the car, placed her in her section, and furtively slipping a dollar into the porter’s responsive fist, got that functionary into a state of useful and eager activity which would have filled, had he seen it, the Pullman superintendent’s heart with wild delight.
“Can’t I get you a physician, Mrs. Vernon?” pleaded the stranger.
“I need none, thank you. You have done infinitely more than I had any right to expect.”
“Well, then, I am going to leave you in the hands of this lady—”
“Mrs. Estelle Sansone,” supplied the owner of that name.
“Thank you, Mrs. Sansone. I am glad to know your name. And,” he continued, turning upon Barbara the most melancholy eyes she had ever seen, while taking reverently her proffered hand, “I beg you, Mrs. Vernon, to remember me in—in—to remember me as you said.”
“Indeed and indeed I will. God bless you!”