The other event, scarcely less tragic, was also of the night and rain. She was wearing the little white furs that once an uncle had bought for her, and that she so dearly loved. All about were mud puddles, and by some misstep she plunged into one, and the precious furs could never be the same again. Rain! Rain! Once in the South, on the Seaboard Air Line, it fairly poured, and the rickety old day-coach leaked. The whole company had to sit holding umbrellas, to keep from getting soaked. Lillian always remembered that, as something different. Christmas that year she remembered, too. A little present had come from Mother—very precious—but there was still more to this Christmas than that—a good deal more. All day they were on a freight train, a train that lumbered and bumped along, and stopped for what seemed hours in the towns, and ran up and down, pulling and pushing all kinds of freight cars, in and out and around, sometimes slamming them into your part of the train, until it seemed your head must certainly come off. You had to ride in the caboose, not at all a nice place—just long, dirty benches on the side, and grimy train men coming in, leaving the doors open, to let in the cold. But then came a stop at quite a big town, where there was certain to be a lot of switching and backing, which would take a good while. A good many of the company “went ashore,” and when by and by they came back they brought, of all things, a Christmas Tree! A little, green tree that they set up right in the old, dingy caboose; and then they opened packages and hung balls and candy canes on the little tree, and even presents. And all the rest of that day, the gay little tree rode and rode, and the old caboose wasn’t dingy any more, and one’s heart could almost break with happiness over a thing like that. Surely in all the world there was never such another Christmas Tree! VI ADVENTURES OF DOROTHY If Dorothy had a Tree that Christmas, there is no memory of it today. A very remarkable one was on its way to her, a little farther down the years, but “Little Willie of East Lynne” appears to have had other entertainments. Life in Rebecca Warren’s “East Lynne” Company was probably less strenuous than in a “Convict Stripes” combination. They made larger towns, had fewer one-night stands. Sleep and food could be more regularly counted upon, and may easily have been of a better quality. Besides, Dorothy—light of heart, plump, dimpled—was fairly worshiped by Dolores Lorne, who lay awake nights planning how she might keep her always, and asked nothing better than to hold her and carry her and shield her from every possible trial of the road. She even planned to steal her, and might have done so, had she not been a devout Catholic.