The boy laughed this time.

"Sorry, sir, but my name is 'Frank'; isn't it, mother?" he added
merrily, turning to the lady at his side, who was regarding William very
unfavorably through a pair of gold-bowed spectacles.

William did not wait for more. With a stammered apology and a flustered
lifting of his hat he backed away.

But where was Billy?

William looked about him in helpless dismay. All around was a wide,
empty space. The long aisle to the Hampden Falls train was deserted
save for the baggage-men loading the trunks and bags on to their trucks.
Nowhere was there any one who seemed forlorn or ill at ease except a
pretty girl with a suit-case, and with a covered basket on her arm, who
stood just outside the gate, gazing a little nervously about her.

William looked twice at this girl. First, because the splash of color
against her brown coat had called his attention to the fact that she was
wearing a pink; and secondly because she was very pretty, and her dark
eyes carried a peculiarly wistful appeal.

"Too bad Bertram isn't here," thought William. "He'd be sketching that
face in no time on his cuff."

The pink had given William almost a pang. He had been so longing to see
a pink--though in a different place. He wondered sympathetically if she,
too, had come to meet some one who had not appeared. He noticed that she
walked away from the gate once or twice, toward the waiting-room, and