“I don’t care for anything to eat. Don’t let the fire out,” she dictated rapidly. “See that Harold doesn’t get uncovered, and _don’t_ bolt the front door. We’ll be home before twelve, but you needn’t sit up for us. Just lie on the lounge in the nursery.” She did not remind forgetful Katy to put the milk tickets in the pail set outside the back door, and only remembered it as she was half-way to the station. The train was due in town at eight-five, but it was late here, and the extra ten minutes seemed a thousand “prickly seconds.” The spring twilight was coming to a close, and when she stepped into the car in which the lamps gleamed dully over the plush seats, it was like stepping into the long tunnel of the night. Only a few men from further up the road sprawled and dozed wearily on their way. She was unaccustomed to going out thus alone, and for an instant a panic-struck thought of failure seized her, but she lost it in the action of her hurrying brain, which constantly pictured the delightful meeting with her expectant husband and the waiting party. By the inalienable law of travel, which ordains that delay in one mode of locomotion means delay in every other, the ferry-boat could not “hit her slip,” but wobbled up and down crosswise in the current, bumping against the piles at either end, with much ringing of the pilot’s bell, and losing of minutes—and minutes—and minutes. But at last Mrs. Gibbons made her way into the big, lighted waiting-room, the haven of her hopes. It took no more than one glance to reveal that there was neither group nor husband waiting for her. The place was entirely empty, save for a few Italian emigrants, and the clock pointed to twenty minutes of nine. So vividly had Mrs. Gibbons pictured her own state of mind as that of her husband—a habit of which fell experience could not break her—that even in the shock of not finding him she felt instantly that some provision had been made for this contingency. She could go straight over and join the party at Martin’s, but he might have left some word for her. The man at the news stand might know. She hovered uncertainly around the pictorial exhibit, trying to screw up a suddenly-waning courage, and then found voice to say engagingly: “I’m looking for my husband.” “What did you say, lady?” The man stopped in his work of sorting papers. “I’m looking for my husband. He’s been waiting for me here for a long time—with a party—but he’s gone now. I thought perhaps he had left some message here with you.” “What kind of looking man was he?” asked the news clerk. He leaned forward companionably. “He—he’s tall, and clean shaven, with a light overcoat, and blue eyes—and——” She groped around for some distinguishing characteristic to elicit a gleam of response—“a square chin—with a dimple in it.” She felt her own fatuousness. “You—you’d know him if you saw him.” The clerk turned to a boy who had appeared behind the counter.