They kissed each other and Harriet ran back to her mother and was lost in the anxious pushing group that surrounded the steps of the slowly stopping train.
"Hang on to Shirley, while I try to find Aunt Trudy," directed Rosemary, with a sudden panicky feeling that she couldn't remember what her aunt looked like.
But, as soon as she saw her, she recognized her.
"Well, Rosemary darling, you came to meet me—that's lovely I'm sure," cried Aunt Trudy, panting slightly from her leap off the last step of the car, to the conductor's unconcealed amazement. "And Mother is much better, the telegram said. As soon as I heard, I resolved nothing should keep me from you—Oh, there's Shirley and Sarah, the dears!"
Shirley responded affectionately to her aunt's caresses, but Sarah stood like a wooden image and submitted to being kissed with bad grace. Aunt Trudy was too excited to be critical.
"What do I do about my trunks?" she fluttered. "And these bags are both heavy—I've brought you girls each a little something. Is Hugh home? And Winnie is still with you, of course?"
Rosemary wisely did not attempt to answer all these questions and, considering that Winnie had been in the Willis family for twenty-eight years and Aunt Trudy had unfailingly put this question to some member of the family at every meeting for the last twenty-seven, this particular query might be said to be more a comment than a question.
"We'll go up to the house in Bernard Coyle's jitney," said Rosemary, leading the way around to the side platform. "He will take your trunk checks, Aunt Trudy, and the express man will deliver them."
Bernard Coyle ran two of the three Eastshore jitneys and personally conducted the least ancient of his two cars. He welcomed the prospect of four passengers with a glad smile and swung Aunt Trudy's bags to a safe place under the seat at a nod from Rosemary. While they climbed in, he departed with the trunk checks and returned in a few minutes to report that the three trunks would be in the front hall of the Willis home within an hour.
Then he took the wheel of his wheezy little car and without another word drove frenziedly and rackingly through the quiet streets till the Willis house was reached. Winnie, mindful of Rosemary's plea, came out to the curb to meet them.