Ida greeted them smilingly, but her face was quivering with a sadness which she could hardly conceal. Bradley pushed on desperately toward her. At length, as the crowd began to thin out, he moved up and thrust his long arm in over the shoulders of the women.
"Won't you shake hands with me, too?" he said, and his voice trembled.
She turned quickly, and her face flashed into a smile—a smile different, somehow, from that with which she had greeted the others, and they saw it. It warmed his melancholy soul like a sudden ray of June sunlight.
Her hand met his, strong and firm in its grasp. "Ah! Mr. Talcott, I'm glad to see you."
The farmers' wives began to leave, saying good-by over and over again. They clung to the girl's hand, gazing at her with wistful eyes. It seemed as if they could not bear to let her go out of their lives again.
"We may never see you again, dearie," one old woman said, "but we never'll forgit you. You've helped us. I reckon life won't seem quite so hard now. We kind o' see a glimmer of a way out."
The tears were on her face, and Ida put her arms about the old lady's neck and kissed her, and then turned away, unable to speak. The chairman, followed by Bradley and Ida, made his way down the steps and out on the grounds, where the streams of people were setting back toward the city. The chairman placed Miss Wilbur in a carriage, and said, "I'll see you at the hotel."
"Won't you ride?" she asked.
"No, thank you," he replied, with a jovial gleam in his eyes, and Ida said no more in protest. Bradley, in great trepidation, took a seat beside her.
"Well, Brother Talcott, what do you think of such a meeting as that?" she asked, after the carriage started, turning upon him with sudden intensity.