“I made sure when I set eyes on you that you’d run away,” she said, “for no young girl’s mother’d let her go travelin’ without a hat or bunnit. But you don’t seem a wild sort, an’ mebbe you had a good reason for makin’ off; you may hev been a bound girl for all I know. However, I don’t know’s I’ve any objection to lettin’ you have the Tam. It’ll be that much extra for the organ.”
So the purchase was made, and Marion looked much less conspicuous with her head covered.
“I lost my hat as I ran,” explained Marion, “and the bushes caught my dress and tore all these places.”
“I’ve got a ‘huzif’ with needles and thread,” said the woman, “and you might sew up the worst of the tears. There’s pieces gone out of some of ’em, but you can cobble them up into some kind of shape an’ help yourself to look more like decent traveling folks. I don’t hold to finery on the road, but I hate rags either abroad or to home.”
Marion thanked her joyfully, but while she busied herself with the rents she pondered on the strangeness of hearing from some one else the infelicities of speech that she was beginning to be quite emancipated from herself; for no one meeting her now would believe that she had only lately expressed herself in a more uncouth dialect than her fellow-passenger used. Then, as the train slowed up at a station, she became wildly anxious for fear the party she was pursuing might leave the cars unnoticed by her.
She felt that it would be very imprudent for her to let herself be seen by Elfie, so she went to the steps at the back of the car and eagerly scanned the people who were getting off. Then, as she came back to her seat, it again occurred to her that she could not even be certain that Elfie was on the train, and this journey of hers might be a foolish exploit which she could hardly explain satisfactorily to Mrs. Abbott.
“You’ve got somethin’ on your mind,” said the thin, crocheting lady, as Marion resumed her seat, “an’ ef I was you, ef it was any wrong-doin’, I’d think twice fore I kept on with it.”
There was something honest and persuasive in her tones, and Marion felt that she was a friend; so, obeying a sudden impulse, she exclaimed, after a searching look into the bright eyes that were looking rather deploringly at her,
“O, I do wish you would help me!”