Joan, already exhilarated by a foretaste of independence, and enjoying to the full what Turgenev calls "that carelessness, that deuce-take-it air which comes out so naturally in foreign travel," changed at Broad Street for a local train that stops at all the smart little flower-bedecked stations which make the environs of Philadelphia so charming to the eye. Neat turnouts were waiting at most of them, dog-carts with dapper grooms at the horses' heads, big machines driven by bare-headed young people in sports clothes; here and there a quietly elegant brougham or limousine with men in livery on the box. As her train passed, she caught glimpses of mellow, red-brick houses that gave the effect of age without decadence; tree-lined avenues, hot-houses, gardens, velvet lawns. It was country that lacked the broad, picturesque loveliness of Kentucky landscape, but it had a definite charm of its own--a well-ordered, leisurely, finished permanence which reminded one that not only American history but American society had its stronghold here, changing less than elsewhere in our adolescent land. There was no suggestion, as in the South, of having seen better days; no raw, temporary promise of the future as in the Middle West. Joan remembered having heard that many people who danced in the Philadelphia Assembly of to-day bore the same names as those who danced in it when Philadelphia was the country's capital, and Mr. Washington its first President. She wondered hopefully whether Desmond was one of those names.... People got in and out of the train, carrying golf-bags and tennis-rackets. Joan smoothed the skirt of the "little model" Effie May had provided for traveling purposes; a fawncolored crêpe with lacy cuffs and collar, which had at first given her qualms of uneasiness. There was a long cloth coat to match, and a hat of the costliest simplicity; and she was not used to traveling dressed as for a party. Now, however, she was grateful for her step-mother's insistence, with a gratitude which increased in proportion to the distance between them. "Always dress up on a train," was Effie May's sage counsel, "so that people will notice you're a lady, and treat you according." People had undoubtedly noticed, and she had been treated "according"; and now toward her journey's end it was particularly agreeable to feel that among these fellow-travelers on pleasure bent she need have no qualms as to her personal appearance, at least. Underneath she might know herself to be plain, poor little Joan Darcy, an adventuress in search of a husband; but on the surface she was as affluent a young lady as ever rang for the porter to lower a shade that was within two feet of her hand.