They were standing on the porch, the door locked and the key in Ellen’s hand, ready to be delivered into Jeremy Todd’s keeping, when they saw Beulah lumbering up the street and laden down with various equipments for the journey. Her fellow-travellers hurried down to the gate to meet her. “I don’t know why I didn’t tell her to meet us at the railway station,” complained Miss Rindy; “it would have saved time. Hurry up, Beulah,” she called out. “’Deed, Miss Rindy, I comin’ fas’ as I kin,” responded Beulah breathlessly. “I so borned down with all dese yere bun’les an’ bags.” Miss Rindy looked aghast as she saw what Beulah carried: a dilapidated suit-case, bursting at corners and tied up with various assortments of string, a discarded cover of a sofa pillow, tied around the top to make a bag, various heterogeneous newspaper bundles of different shapes and sizes kept together by strips of muslin, the string having given out, and, last, a paper bag containing, supposedly, a hat which was secured to Beulah’s sleeve by a large safety-pin. “My fathers, Beulah!” exclaimed Miss Rindy. “You can’t travel all the way to Maine with that collection. Why didn’t you put them all in one bag or trunk?” “Didn’t have nothin’ but dis yere suit-case, an’ dey wasn’t no papers big enough to pack uverthing in.” “Well, why didn’t you send some of the stuff by parcel post?” “I don’ trus’ my bes’ clothes to no mail bag. I sees how dey flings ’em eroun’.” “You might have worn the hat, at least.” “W’ar mah bes’ hat in dem dirty cyars? Um-um! Why, Miss Rindy, it trim’ with pink roses an’ white gauzy ribbon, an’ yuh knows what it look lak when we gets dere. I pays two ninety-eight fo’ dat hat, an’ I ain’t spile it for nobody.” Miss Rindy hastily consulted her wrist watch. “Well, all is I am not going to have us all disgraced when we meet Miss Wickham in New York. Open the door, Ellen. No, I’ll go. You come with me, Beulah. There is an old steamer trunk in the attic, and into that these things must go, train or no train. Run on ahead, Ellen, and see if you can get Mike Reilly to come after the trunk. Don’t lose a minute; we may be able to make the train yet.” Ellen started off at a run, and did not stop when she heard some one behind her shouting her name, but she came to a halt when an automobile drew up to the sidewalk and Barry Dove-Hale jumped out. “I see you are in a hurry,” he said. “Hop in and I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.” Ellen scrambled into the car and explained the situation. Immediately Barry turned his car around. “No use hunting up Mike,” he declared. “He is an uncertain quantity unless you order him the day before you want him. We’ll go back, pick up the trunk, and I’ll take the whole outfit down to the station. If the trunk is ready, we can make it. Is it a big one?” “No, only a small steamer trunk.” “Then I can easily manage it.”