“Don’t despair, dear child; brighter days will come; something tells me you will find your mother yet,” the old lady said in bidding her good-by.
As the train sped on its way through the busy streets of the town, over the prairies dotted here and there with neat farm-houses, and anon plunged into forests gay with the rich coloring of the Frost King’s pencil, Floy set herself resolutely to put aside thoughts of her losses, disappointments, anxieties, and perplexities, and to fix them upon the blessings that were still left her.
Gay and light-hearted she could not be, but hope kindled anew within her as she thought on Mrs. Bond’s last words. Ah, she would not despair! her long-lost mother, and Espy too, would yet be restored.
His words had deeply wounded her, but surely the love which had been given her from their very infancy could not be so suddenly withdrawn.
“We are moving very slowly; something must be wrong. Don’t you think so, miss?” queried a woman in the next seat, turning suddenly around upon Floy.
The words startled our heroine from her reverie, sending a sharp pang of grief and terror through her heart as they vividly recalled the horrors of the accident which had wrought her such woe. She had been hardly conscious of the fact, but certainly the train had gradually slackened speed for the last ten minutes or more; and now it stood still.
“What is wrong? why do we stop here where there is no station?” she asked of the conductor, who was passing the car window.
“Don’t be alarmed,” he said; “the boiler has sprung a leak, and we’ll have to stand here a while till they can get another engine sent down from Clearfield.”
“Dear, dear!” fretted a thoughtless girl, “we shall be behind time all along the route now, miss our connections, and have no end of trouble.”