“Dear Sir: A gentleman have arrived here on Number Two, inkwiring for you, and I take him for to be a member of Mrs. Raoul’s family, so I got him and his ingineer here in Camp and reckon I kin hold him about till termorrer sundown.
“Yours trooly,
“Lucius R. Kelly.”
8.
Beati Possidentes. I now saw that under the methods of Southern courtship the man who had got the lady had a great advantage. The Memphis express pulled up at four in the morning in front of a burning tar-barrel on the track, which Raoul had placed there as a hint to it to stop at Bagdad. How our story always got out so quickly, I don’t know; but two members of Congress from Mississippi turned out of the two end sections and were accommodated with shakedowns in the smoking compartment of the crowded Pullman, with Raoul and myself.
I did not sleep very well, and at seven in the morning got out at Chattanooga. What was my surprise at seeing Mrs. Judge Pennoyer also emerge, fully dressed, from the sleeping-car.
“You young people don’t want me,” said she, benevolently. “I should only be in the way. An’ I’m getting out here to take the day train on to Knoxville. If I got out thar, they might stop ye before the train pulled out again; now ye’ll all get by unbeknownst.”
What could I oppose to such strategy? Moreover, the young ladies were still in their berths. I could not leave Miss Jeanie to come back alone. I bowed; the train started; I got in it.
The sunlight broadened, but it was high noon and we had passed Knoxville before the two girls appeared, fresher than the June morning, and rosier, I am sure, than Raoul or I. With some trepidation I told them of Mrs. Pennoyer’s evasion.
“Dear Aunt Emily,” said May, “she has always been like a mother to me.” But Jeanie, I fancied, blushed; and that day talked to Raoul, while May was left to me.