Then she dropped it into her purse, which she thrust back carefully into her pocket. She sighed, and was silent for a moment. We were passing a series of huge signs built like a barricade along the right of way, and on one of these I observed with fresh interest an advertisement whose counterpart I had seen often about New York, but without ever observing it attentively. It drew a laugh from me now. It represented an infant in a perambulator, behind which stood the effigy of a capped and aproned nurse. A legend was inscribed on the board to this effect:--
HUSH! Baby's asleep. It's a HOLLISTER PERAMBULATOR!
"If it's a Hollister," I remarked as a second of these flew by the window, "it's perfect."
"I was n't referring to the perambulator necessarily. Anything that's Hollister must be good."
"We're out of the business, except that Aunt Octavia gets a dollar for every one that's made; but the trust keeps the name."
"The trust could hardly change your name. You will have to do that yourself."
"You've been talking to Hezekiah. That's the way people always talk to her."
"It's certainly not the way I've been talking to you; but we've run away from school, and I'm disposed to make the most of it. Our conversation at your aunt's has been so high up in the air, that it's pleasant to come down to earth and tune it to the less strenuous note of a twentieth-century railway journey."
"That, Mr. Ames, may depend upon the point of view."
"But you will make it yours, won't you? You see, I've always dreamed of adventures, but since I met your aunt in the Asolando they've been coming a little too fast. There's that ghost business. Now I 'm going to catch that ghost to-night, if it's the last thing I do!"
"Well, I'm not the ghost, and neither is my father, if that's what's in your mind. Tell me just what you have seen and heard."
I gave her the story in detail, and my recital seemed to amuse her greatly.
"You thought it was Aunt Octavia herself at first, then you thought I was the spook, and now you are not fully persuaded that it is not my father. I will take you into my confidence this far--that I don't know how father got into the house last night. He wrote a note asking me to meet him on the roof and bring the foils. That was not unlike him, as he is the dearest father in the world, and his whims are just as jolly in their way as Aunt Octavia's. I was sure that Aunt Octavia had retired for the night, so I changed my dress and carried the foils up through the trunk-room. I had hardly reached there before my father appeared. The whole situation--my being there and all that--has distressed father a great deal; so I let you see me cry a little. I promise never to do it again."