I gazed at her mystified, and she said, "Don't you know that Miss Willoughby is going in the same train with you?"
"What!" I exclaimed, far too forcibly.
"Yes. Her visit ends to-day. She lives in Waterton. But why should that affect you so wonderfully? I am sure you cannot object to an hour in the train with Amy Willoughby. She may talk a good deal, but you must admit that she talks well."
"Object!" I said. "Of course I don't object. She talks very well indeed, and I shall be glad to have the pleasure of her company."
"No one would have thought so," she said, looking at me with a criticising eye, "who had seen you when you heard she was going."
"It was the suddenness," I said.
"Oh yes," she replied, "and your delicate nerves."
In my soul I cried out to myself: "Am I ever to break free from young women! Is there to be a railroad accident between here and Waterton! If so, I shall save the nearest old gentleman!"
I believe the Larramies were truly sorry to have me go. Each one of them in turn told me so. Mrs. Larramie again said to me, with tears in her eyes, that it made her shudder to think what that home might be if it had not been for me.
Mr. Larramie and Walter promised to get up some fine excursions if I would stay a little longer, and Genevieve made me sit down beside her under a tree.