She looked about for the little electric call button, and, finding it in the casement at the side of the window, pressed it vigorously. It was some time before the porter responded as, all along his route, the omnipresent men claimed his attention for various services. But finally he reached the end of the car where the girl in the blue sailor suit sat up very prim and stiff, waiting for him.
“Is this—er—a ladies’ car?” she asked timidly.
“A ladies’ car? Oh, yes, miss. This is all right. This is the car for Rochester.”
“But I—never was in a car like—like this before,” Dorothy objected, glancing about at the men who were still struggling in the aisles with various refractory articles of clothing.
For a moment the porter seemed puzzled. Then, all at once, he understood Dorothy’s objection.
“Oh, them’s only the gentlemen gettin’ ready to leave, miss. They’ll all be out soon, and you’ll have more room. Anything I can do for you, miss?”
“No,” and Dorothy just checked herself from adding “thank you,” which she felt would not be quite proper, and would show that she was unused to the attention of a porter. Then the colored attendant made his way down the aisle, while the only girl in the car held her face close against the window pane and fell to thinking of the task that lay before her.
She was not now troubled about the car and the occupants. If it was all right, and she would be brought safely to Rochester in it, that was all she had to consider. Of course it would have been less lonely to have had the usual day coach passengers with her, but she thought Ned must have selected this car and she felt he knew best. Then, too, the porter had said the men were rapidly leaving their berths and as soon as they did so the colored man made the folding beds into broad velvet seats, similar to the one occupied by Dorothy.
When these seats had replaced the hanging curtains, and the comfortable places were occupied by the men who had been so lately sleeping, even though there were no women among them, Dorothy recovered from her first shock of embarrassment. The passengers all appeared to be gentlemen and not one of them seemed to even glance in her direction, though they must have realized how strange it was for a pretty girl to be the lone female passenger.
When the spasm of brushing clothes into which the porter threw himself, was finally over, which operation Dorothy could not help watching for it was done with such dispatch, and when the men had gone to the dining car for breakfast or become engrossed in their newspapers, she tried to map out her day’s programme.