that they might easily have left the earth she knew and be flying
through space. She whimsically thought that if at the next stop she were
to be told that she was on the planet Mars, she would not be greatly
astonished. It was like traveling with Alice in Wonderland.

One thing, however, recalled her to earth and prosaic mundane affairs:
her supply of money was rapidly getting dangerously low. Barring
accident, she would have enough to get her to Dyer, where Eddie was to
meet her. But suppose they should be snowed up for a day or two? Only an
hour before she had been thrilled with an account of just such an
experience which a man in the seat in front of her was recounting to his
companion. Well, if that happened, she would either have to go hungry or
beg food from the more affluent of her fellow-passengers! Fortunately
she was not obliged to put their generosity to the test. The train
arrived at Dyer without accident only a few minutes behind the scheduled
time.

There were a number of people at the station as Nora alighted. For a
moment she had a horrid fear that either she had been put off at the
wrong place or that her brother had failed to meet her. Certainly none
of the fur-coated figures were in the least familiar. But almost at once
one of the men detached himself from the waiting group on the platform
and after one hesitating second came toward her.

"Nora, my child, I hardly knew you! I was forgetting that you would be a
grown woman," and Nora was half smothered in a furry embrace and kissed
on both cheeks before she was quite sure that the advancing stranger
was her brother.

"Oh, Eddie, dear, I didn't know you at all. But how can one be expected