At last she heard a distant clock striking three, and knew their 1:40 was a night-train. She ventured then to go over to the restaurant for her own dinner.
She was hungry enough to long to go into the saloon at the back and order a comfortable dinner, but she wanted to keep the hotel door in sight, so she asked good-natured Mrs. Jones, who was now on duty in place of her husband, if she might have bread and milk at the counter again, and, receiving permission, took her seat where she could see every one who went in and out of the Secor House.
Mrs. Jones suggested sandwiches and pie as becoming adjuncts to a counter lunch, and Marion gladly partook of them and ordered a package of the former tied up for future needs.
She lingered as long as she could over her lunch, quite enjoying the company of Mrs. Jones, who asked no questions, but comfortably gave quite a biography of herself.
It was not an hour when customers were plenty, so there were few interruptions. Marion felt so desolate and lonely that being with this nice motherly woman was very cheering, and she felt as safe about Elfie there, with the window of her room in sight, as she did when in the hotel; so, seeing Mrs. Jones’s futile efforts to keep the glasses on her broad nose while she took a few stitches in Mr. Jones’s socks, she asked permission to take the work out of her hands, and soon found herself comfortably seated behind the counter on a low chair close by the large window, with a basket of stockings in her lap, cheerfully bridging the appalling chasms in Mr. Jones’s neglected gray socks with blue darning cotton, that being the only color afforded by the basket.
She worked till it was too dark to see the opposite house readily, and, taking a paper of candy which Mrs. Jones gratefully insisted on giving her with a kiss, went back to her room on the fourth floor.
CHAPTER XXXI.
AN EXCITING NIGHT.
Some one had brought in a pitcher of water and had lit her gas, so she sat down and tried to keep herself composed by crocheting on her wool lace.
There was no way of finding out the time, but after some hours the house grew very still and she felt sure it was late. Mrs. Jones had told her they kept the saloon open till twelve, an hour later than they would, she said, if they did not live there in the building.