electric-lights occasionally, to read the time by. Only half-past ten! Reba took heart. Surely there would be a late train returning to town, from wherever the railroad station was situated. Three automobiles whizzed sharply past her as she stood looking up and down the long straight road, uncertain in which direction to go. If she had been a man she had only to step out into the middle of the road, and hail any one of the automobiles that came by, and ask the way to the nearest railway station, but a woman—at least she, Reba Jerome—dared not do a thing like that. She turned north. In that direction lay Boston anyhow.
Reba was fortunate in her choice. She had walked only a quarter of a mile when she met a white horse drawing a buggy, well filled with a man, a large woman, and a small boy crammed in between. Reba inquired of this reassuring loadful, if there was a railroad station nearby, and the man's voice replied:
"Yes. Quarter mile or so further on, and turn in to yer right by some ice-houses."
"And is there a train to Boston, do you think, to-night?" asked Reba.
"Yes," the man assured her, "at twenty minutes after eleven, or thereabouts."
"And does it surely stop at this station?"
"Yes. Only station fifteen miles further on, or six miles back, it does stop at. You'll ketch yer train all right, ma'am. Depot ain't fifteen minutes' walk away."
"Oh, thank you."
"You're welcome. Git up, Nancy."
When Reba came in sight of the solitary little country station, dimly lighted and standing quite by itself beside the railroad track, she came in sight too of Chad-
