"God bless dear, dear Tante and keep her safe!"
Then, feeling very excited, Keineth went to sleep without crying and dreamed of running barefooted with Peggy through fields all white with daisies, while in the distance at a fence like the rail fences in pictures, stood Aunt Josephine's awful French maid with Fido under her arm, screaming at her in French.
So vivid seemed the dream that it awakened Keineth. She listened for a moment. She could hear the click of her father's typewriter. She pressed the button that lighted her bed lamp, found her slippers and stole noiselessly downstairs. Never in her whole life had she disturbed her Daddy when he was writing, but now she did not even rap--she pushed the door open and ran to him.
"Daddy, Daddy--" she cried as though still pursued by the screaming French maid. "Please--I'd rather go to the Lee's!"
CHAPTER III
OVERLOOK
"The next station is Fairview, Keineth--watch out for the kiddies," said Mr. Lee, rising from the car seat.
Keineth had been sitting for a half hour with her nose flattened against the car window, not seeing at all the fields and farmhouses that flew past her, but trying to picture what Peggy would be like! Keineth was very excited and a little tired from the night in the sleeper; she was fighting back the thought that she would not see Daddy for a long, long time. Daddy had gone with them to the station the night before, and had helped her undress in the queer little shelf he called a berth and had himself pulled the blankets close around her chin and kissed her again and again.
"Little soldier--right face," he whispered--and Keineth knew that he meant she should be very brave over it all. Then he had hurried off the train, for the conductor was shouting: "All aboard----" and Keineth, peeping from under her curtain for a last look, had seen his tall figure go down the dimly-lighted platform.