"I know just how you feel," assured Mrs. Rossiter. "But perhaps, when you are on your way back, you'll be able to stay longer." "If she doesn't get back by the time she's twenty," laughed Allen, "I'm going after her. Just remember, Jeanne, I want to be on hand when you're ready to decide about that husband. I should hate to have that iceman get ahead of me." "All right," agreed Jeanne, cheerfully. "Just hunt me up about six years from now. If I have time to bother with any husbands at all, I think, maybe, I'd rather have you around than the iceman." "Be sure," said Mrs. Rossiter, at parting, "to let us know when you're starting back this way." "I will," promised Jeanne. "I've had a lovely time. Good-by, everybody, and thank you _so_ much." Jeanne slept soundly that night and Bayard Taylor did no extra traveling, because Allen had made a tiny cage for him from a small wooden box, with bars of very fine wire. At Negaunee, Jeanne succeeded in lugging all her belongings safely, if not comfortably, across the platform, from one train to the other. "Is this the train to Bancroft?" she asked. "It is," said the brakeman, helping her aboard. The last half-hour of the journey seemed a year long. She had had no breakfast and she was sure that Patsy had gotten up earlier than usual that morning just on purpose to _grow_. Never was train so slow, never had fourteen miles seemed so many. The other passengers looked as if they had settled down and meant to stay where they were for _weeks_; but Jeanne was much too excited to do any settling. She wanted to get off and push. But at last a beautiful voice (that is, it sounded like a beautiful voice to the impatient little traveler) shouted: "All off for Bancroft." In spite of her weighty belongings, the first passenger off that train was Jeannette Huntington Duval. There was a parcel-room in the station at Bancroft. Jeanne checked her suitcase--Allen had told her how to do that--put her check in her other stocking for safe keeping, and then, burdened only with her work-box, set out to surprise the Duvals. Her father, she was sure, would be willing to go for the suitcase that evening. He'd surely be home by now, even if Dan McGraw had taken him for a _long_ trip. No doubt she had passed his letter on the way. And how those children would come whooping down the dock at sight of her! The sky was blue and all Jeanne's thoughts were happy ones. CHAPTER XX A MISSING FAMILY The walk was long, but at last Jeanne reached the blossoming bank, against which Old Captain's freight car rested. Nobody home at Old Captain's; but it was much too pleasant a day for a fisherman to stay ashore. One of his nets, however, hung over his queer house and his old shoes were beside his bed--the biggest, broadest shoes in all Bancroft; there was no mistaking _those_. Half a dozen steps down the grassy dock and Jeanne stood stock-still. The lake! _There_, all big and clear and blue. And just the same--_her_ lake!