"You may well appear surprised. Promise me that you will remain by my side until we reach our destination." She appeared kind of nervous and agitated, and I promised. Instead of being protected, I found myself figuring in the _role_ of protector. My timid companion did the most of the talking; she pumped me pretty dry of facts about myself, and confided to me that she was doing a good business--making eight hundred a year clear profit--and all she wanted to complete her satisfaction was the right kind of a partner. She proposed to me to become that partner. I said that I did not understand the millinery business; she said I had been a clerk in a dry-goods store, and that was the first step; I said I didn't think I should fancy the bonnet line. She said I should be a _silent_ partner; all in the world I'd have to do would be to post the books, and she'd warrant me a thousand dollars a year, for the business would double. I said I had but one hundred and thirty dollars; she said, write to my pa for more, but she'd take me without a cent--there was something in my face that showed her I was to be trusted. She was so persistent that I began to be alarmed--I felt that I should be drawn into that woman's clutches against my will. I got pale and cold, and the perspiration broke out on my brow. Was it for this I had fled from home and friends? To become a partner in the hat-and-bonnet business, with a dreadful old maid, who wore blue spectacles and curled her false hair. I shivered. "Poor darling!" said she, "the boy is cold," and she wrapped me up in a big plaid shawl of her own. The very touch of that shawl made me feel as if I had a thousand caterpillars crawling over me; yet I was too bashful to break loose from its folds. I grew feverish. "There," said she, "you are getting your color back." The more attention she paid to me the more homesick I grew. I looked piteously in the conductor's face as he passed by. He smiled relentlessly. I glanced wildly yet furtively about to see if, perchance, a vacant seat were to be descried. "Rest thy head on this shoulder; thou art weary," she said. "I will put my veil over your face and you can catch a nap." But I was not to be caught napping. "No, I thank you--I never sleep in the day time," I stammered. Oh, what a ride I was having! How wretched I felt! Yet I was too bashful to shake off the shawl and stand up before a car-load of people.