Amidst others, the Miss Jupps and their brother entered it, having finished their day's visit to Mrs. Chester. They took their seats in the middle compartment of a first-class carriage, and happened to have it to themselves. The young ladies sat with their backs to the engine, he with his face to it.
"The Lakes would have had a pleasant day had they come," remarked Louisa. "You may rely upon it her objection lay in its being Sunday. Perhaps she is growing religious."
"What an awful lookout for Lake!" spoke up Mr. Jupp, from his corner.
"Oliver!" reproved the young ladies.
"She'll stop his liberty and his cigars," persisted Mr. Oliver: "there are no such martinets under the sun as your religious wives. Talking about cigars, would it affect your bonnets, girls, if I lighted one now?"
They screamed out together. They would not have their loves of new bonnets poisoned and blackened with cigar smoke; they'd never be fit to go on again. "And you must not smoke in these carriages," added Louisa: "we are near Coombe Dalton station, and the guard would see you."
"Pretty wives you'll make when you are married," remarked Oliver. "Afraid of cigar smoke!"
The caution, or the bonnets, caused Oliver Jupp to keep his cigar-case in his pocket. Coombe Dalton station, an insignificant one, was about midway between Guild and Katterley. The train did not stop at it. Oliver leaned from the window to take a survey of the route.
"We are close to it," said he; "yonder are the lights. Halloa! what's the red light flashing up and down for? That ought to be a green."
"If a red light is waving in the green's place, there must be danger," said Rose, quickly. "Red is the danger signal."