As he stands in the door of the office this spring morning, watching a passenger-train which has stopped at the big tank to take water, he is worth looking at. His face is not handsome, as we use the word, but it is frank and open, with a manliness beyond its years. His eyes are blue-gray, clear, and direct; his mouth is a little large, with sensitive lips and a quirk at the corner which shows a sense of humour--altogether an attractive face and one to inspire liking and confidence. A good many people had left the train, during its halt, to stretch themselves and get a breath of fresh air. These clambered on board again, at the conductor's signal, and after a preliminary puff or two, the train started slowly, clinking over the switch, and rattling away westward. A moment later, Allan's eyes caught a glint of colour at the edge of the little grove of saplings near the office, and a girl, carrying a bouquet of wild flowers, ran up the little bank to the track. She stood for an instant staring after the disappearing train, took a quick step or two as if to follow it, then, evidently seeing the uselessness of such pursuit, turned and walked slowly toward the operator's shanty. Not until she was quite near did Allan recognize her; then, with a curious little leap of the heart, he saw that it was the girl who had rushed into Superintendent Heywood's office one day long ago, to summon him to his train. Allan remembered that her father had called her Bess. She came up the little cinder path and stopped before the door without any hint of recognition in her eyes. "Can you tell me when the next train for Wadsworth leaves?" she asked. "Not until five-nine," he answered. "And it is now?" "It is now one-fifty-one." "Oh, dear," she sighed, and he saw that in the year which had intervened since he had seen her last, she had grown more distractingly pretty than ever--more mature and womanly. "Well," she continued, her foot on the lowest step, "I suppose I may as well come in and sit down. This is the station, isn't it?" "This is the operator's office," he said. "The Byers station is that frame building you can just see up the track yonder." "It seems an awful way," she remarked, gazing pensively in the direction of his gesture. "It's nearly half a mile; altogether too far for you to walk," said Allan, with conviction. "Oh, then I may stay here?" "You certainly may," Allan hastened to assure her, and placed his best chair at her disposal. "But it isn't--well--palatial." She glanced around the dingy little room, with its rusty stove, its primitive lavatory, its rough, clapboarded walls, and then at the fresh-faced young fellow anxiously awaiting the verdict. "It's cosy," she said, and settled herself comfortably upon the chair. "I'm afraid I don't keep it quite as tidy as I might," said Allan, suddenly conscious that it was anything but tidy. "You see the old broom wore out, and we haven't got a new one yet."