"Why, Elinor Brentwood!" she said. "I do believe you are crying!"
Elinor's smile was serenity undisturbed.
"What a vivid imagination you have, Nell, dear," she scoffed. Then she changed the subject arbitrarily: "Is mother quite comfortable? Did you have the porter put a screen in her window?—you know she always insists she can't breathe without it."
Penelope evaded the queries and took her turn at subject-wrenching—an art in which she excelled.
"We are on our own railroad now, aren't we?" she asked, with purposeful lack-interest. "And—let me see—isn't Mr. Kent at some little town we pass through?"
"It is a city," said Elinor. "And the name is Gaston."
"I remember now," Penelope rejoined. "I wonder if we shall see him?"
"It is most unlikely. He does not know we are coming, and he wouldn't be looking for us."
Penelope's fine eyes clouded. At times Elinor's thought-processes were as plain as print to the younger sister; at other times they were not.
"I should think the least we could do would be to let him know," she ventured. "Does anybody know what time the train passes Gaston?"