"It's all right," Jack answered, beginning to remove Amy's jacket, with an air of being at home.
Just then Eloise glanced from the window and saw they were moving.
"Oh, Mr. Harcourt!" she screamed. "We have started! You will be carried off! Do hurry!"
She put both hands on his arm to force him from the room, while he laughed and said, "Did you think I would let you go to Florida alone? I am going with you. I have a section all to myself outside, where you can sit when you are tired in here. Are you sorry?"
"Sorry!" she repeated. "I was never so glad in my life. But are you sure you ought to go? Is it right?"
"You mean proper? Perfectly!" he answered. "Your mother is with us. Your friend Ruby knows I am going, and Mr. Mason, and Mrs. Biggs, and everybody else by this time. It's all right. Mrs. Grundy will approve."
Eloise was too happy to care for Mrs. Grundy, and her happiness increased with every hour which brought her nearer to Florida, and she saw more and more how thoroughly kind and thoughtful Jack was. Sometimes he sat with her and her mother in the compartment he had engaged for them, but oftener when Amy was resting she sat with him in his section, planning what she was to do first when Florida was reached, and how she was to find Jakey. Jack knew exactly what to do, but he liked to listen to her and watch the expression of her face, which seemed to him to grow more beautiful every hour. On the last evening they were to be upon the road, she was sitting with him just before the car lamps were lighted, and he said to her, "Suppose you don't succeed? What will you do?"
For a moment Eloise was silent; then she replied, "I shall take mother home to my grandmother's. I call her that still, although you know she is not really mine, but I love her just the same, and shall take care of her and mother. I can do it. Ruby will let me have the school, I am sure, if I ask her, but I couldn't take it from her now. I can get another somewhere, or if not a school, I can find something to do. I am not afraid of work."
She was trying to be very brave, but there was a pathetic look in her face which moved Jack strangely. Her hands were lying in her lap, and taking the one nearest to him, he said, "Eloise, I'll tell you what you are going to do, whether you succeed or not. You are going to be my wife! Yes, my wife!"
"Mr. Harcourt!" Eloise exclaimed, trying to withdraw her hand from him.