“Oh, I forgot,” said Bessy.
Charlotte knew what she had forgot—that the horses had gone for debt—and she reddened, but the other girl's voice was honest.
“I'd like to take you sometime,” said Bessy.
“Thank you,” said Charlotte.
“I'd offer to take you home to-night,” said Bessy, “but I've arranged to take somebody else.”
“Thank you. I could not go, anyway,” said Charlotte. “I am down to meet my father.”
“Oh!” said Bessy. “Well, then you couldn't. A sleigh ain't quite wide enough for three, unless one of 'em is your best young man,” she giggled. Charlotte felt ashamed.
“My father is,” she said, sternly. She fairly turned her back on Bessy Van Dorn, but she did not notice it, for the train was audible in the distance, and Bessy began calculating her distance from the car in which Frank Eastman usually rode, that she might be sure not to miss him.
Charlotte stood on the platform, and also ran along by the side of the train scanning anxiously the men who alighted. To her great astonishment, her father was not among them. She could scarcely believe it when the train went slowly past the station and her father had not got off.
Bessy Van Dorn, driving Frank Eastman in her sleigh, with the fringe of fur tails dangling over the back, looked around at Charlotte slowly retreating from the station. “Why, her father didn't come!” said she.