Linda's eyes fell to the hats, and she slowly performed the office, and more slowly climbed on the seat and hung up the bags. As Miss Barry noted the languid motions of the erstwhile captain of a basket-ball team, she realized that her niece was like a person convalescing from a siege of illness. Was she convalescing? Was she improving or retrograding? No matter which; they were going home, home to the Cape, where Miss Barry would not feel at a constant disadvantage; and her heart sang. Linda was too feeble to jump off the train, and they were as good as there. Miss Belinda sniffed again. Her eye fell on the violets. Linda had sunk back into her corner, her lips apart, her eyes languid. The train was very warm. An electric fan whirred above their door. Miss Barry leaned across and took up the violets. Whitcomb's face had been vibrant with emotion as he left them. "The poor boy!" thought Miss Barry. She had learned a number of masculine names through reading the different cards coming repeatedly with boxes of flowers for Linda; but Fred Whitcomb had been more pushing and insistent than the others. He had, as it were, often put his heart in Miss Belinda's hands to be offered to Linda on a salver; and in the stress of emotion this morning Miss Barry had been afraid once or twice that her niece was going to be kissed by proxy. She certainly felt sorry for Freddy Whitcomb, almost as sorry as for Bertram King, whose absence had moved her keenly. "Wouldn't you like to hold these? They're so refreshing," she said, holding out the violets toward their owner. The girl made a faint, protesting gesture with one hand, and shook her head. Miss Barry plunged her nose into the velvet depths, and looked over the bouquet at the white, immobile face in the opposite corner. "Ch-ch-_choo_, ch-ch-_choo_," went the wheels, faster, faster. Welcome sound. Sweet violets. The scattered fragrance of woodland places, massed together for the joy of woman, offered by an eager heart to a cold one. "Violet time is over at the Cape," she remarked. "What?" "I say, violet time's over at the Cape. Daisies and clover now, and the wild roses swelling up and getting ready." Even the preoccupied Linda observed a new vitality in her companion's face, and life in her eyes in place of endurance. "You're riding backward, Aunt Belinda. I didn't notice till this minute. Change with me." The girl leaned forward. "Sit still, child. It makes no difference to me." "Then come here beside me." Miss Barry hesitated. Once she would have declined on the ground of mutual comfort, but an overture from her captive was remarkable. "Well, if it won't crowd you," she said, and after a moment of reluctance she obeyed. "Don't you want to sit by the window?" asked the girl.