An express train going in the opposite direction crashed suddenly by the open windows with a deafening racket. Miss Barry started and waked. Blinking, she realized her surroundings, and sat up. She met her niece's eyes. Linda had taken up the violets and her nose was buried in their soft fragrance. "That was too bad, Aunt Belinda," she said, leaning forward. "It's growing very warm. Can't I get you a drink?" she said. "Glory be!" thought Miss Barry. "Yes, I wish you would," she said aloud. Her eyes followed the girl, as she slowly rose and moved away to get the water. "At last," continued Miss Barry mentally, "she isn't walking in her sleep." She accepted the glass when it came, and drank thirstily, although she had not been thirsty. When Linda returned, moving slowly and holding by the seat, she did not take the place she had vacated, but sat down beside her aunt. "Tell me something about Father," she said. "What sort of thing? What do you mean?" "Not the things the newspapers have printed, about his beating his way to Chicago on the trains, and being an errand boy, and having no education, and all that--his phenomenal rise to fortune. Not that." Miss Barry snorted. "No education! Absurd! The newspapers make me sick. He had education enough to make him one of the smartest men in the country. I should think folks would know better than to believe such stuff." "And you took care of him, didn't you, Aunt Belinda? I never used to want to know anything about his childhood. I grew tired of hearing people say he was a self-made man, and I was ashamed to know that he was barefooted and poor. That was another thorn," finished Linda, under her breath. "Another what?" "A thorn." Miss Barry looked around at the speaker. "Oh, a thorn in your side, you mean. I guess you have always been some high-headed, Linda." She used the past tense instinctively as she viewed the pale, languid face leaning back beside her. "You took care of him like a little mother," persisted the girl. "He has told me so." "Yes, I was only ten when Ma died, and I guess the papers would 'a' been right about your father's education if I hadn't saved her slippers." "You mean figuratively? You stepped into them." "No, I don't. I mean it just as literal as anything could be meant. Pa was easy-going and had enough to attend to, black-smithing and selling flour and feed, so if anybody was going to spank Lambert it had to be me." Linda's lips, pressed tightly against the violets, quivered against them. "I'm sure you loved him tremendously," she said unsteadily.