Everybody was at the depot to meet Gail; just everybody in the world! It was midnight when the train rolled in, and, as she came toward the gate, the faces outside, with the high station lights beaming down upon their eagerness, were like a flashing dream of all the faces she had ever loved. Of course there was her mother, a little stiff, a little sedate, a little reserved, but, under her calm exterior, fluttering with a flood of pent-up emotion. There was her father, a particularly twinkling-eyed gentleman, a somewhat thinner, somewhat older, somewhat neater edition of Uncle Jim, and he had, of all things, her favourite collie, Taffy, perched high on his shoulder! It was from her father that Gail had her vivacity and from her mother her faculty of introspection. Dazed by the unexpected delight, and the pain, too, of seeing all these dear old faces, she was for picking them out in detail, when Taffy made a blur of them. Taffy, suddenly recognising his playfellow in the throng, first deafened Miles Sargent with a series of welcoming barks, and then began climbing up his back. Sargent, always gifted with the capacity for over-estimating his own powers, a quality which had permitted his brother Jim to slightly outrun him in the game of life, had fondly hoped that he could restrain Taffy by the firm hold of the forepaws over his shoulder; but collies are endowed with a separate set of muscles for wriggling purposes alone, and the first thing Miles Sargent knew, Taffy had crawled right over him, and had kicked off from his cravat, and had shot straight through the outcoming throng, a flash of yelping brown and white, brushing over a woman with a basket, and landing against Gail with the force of all his lively affection.

That was only the beginning of the impetuosity with which she was received at home. She had never realised that she had quite so many friends, and even the people in the street seemed familiar, as she was bundled out to the car, with Arly smiling steadfastly in the background and remembered only at intervals. They looked more substantial and earnest and sincere and friendly, these people, than the ones with whom she had been recently associated. They were more polished in New York, more sure of themselves, more indifferent to the great mass of their fellow humanity, but here one could be trustful. It was so good to be home!

Of course Howard was there, just the same old Howard, and he bustled up to her with the same old air of proprietorship, quite as if nothing had ever happened to disturb their relations. It was he who took her by the arm and engineered her out to her father’s car. At first she was puzzled by his air of having a right to boss her around, and then the reason flashed on her mind. Pride! Howard did not want their set to know that he was no longer drum major in the Sargent procession.

“There’s a wad of roses at the house for you, Snapsy,” her father informed her as the machine started, and his brown eyes twinkled until they almost seemed to be surrounded by a halo. “They’re from number one, I think.”

“Number one?” puzzled Gail, who had taken a folding seat so that she might occasionally pat Taffy, who sat up sedately with the chauffeur.

“Miles,” protested Mrs. Sargent, trying to direct his glance toward Arly.

“Edward E. Allison,” grinned Gail’s father. “He must be a very active gentleman. Probably telephoned his own florist in New York to telegraph Marty here to supply you. Nothing has arrived from the other eight.”

Gail had a mad impulse to search for her time table. She remembered now—could she ever forget it—that her nine slaves had been numbered!

“Dad!” she wailed. “You couldn’t have seen that awful paper!”

“We receive the New York papers now at four P.M.,” he informed her, with an assumption of local pride in the fact. “This morning’s Planet had a wonderful circulation here. I think everybody in town has seen it.”

Arly Fosland had the bad grace to giggle. Mrs. Sargent looked at her dubiously. She had, of course, implicit confidence in Gail’s selection of friends, but nevertheless she was not one to make up her own mind too rapidly.

“Everybody’s proud of you, Snapsy!” went on Miles Sargent. “That’s a wonderful collection of slaves to have made in so short a time.”

“Please don’t, Dad!” begged Gail.

“For myself, I favour number five,” continued her father, enjoying himself very much, and Arly Fosland made up her mind that she was going to feel very homelike in the Sargent house, at dinner times. “Number five is—”

“Miles!” and Mrs. Sargent put her hand comfortingly on Gail’s knee, while she turned reproachful eyes on her husband.

“Why, Judith,” protested Mrs. Sargent’s husband, in mock surprise; “number five—”

“Dad, I’ll jump out of this car!”

“—is the Reverend Smith Boyd, of Market Square Church, the wealthiest and most fashionable congregation in the world. Number six—Mrs. Fosland, I couldn’t make out number six very well. I suppose you know him.”

Arly shrieked.

“I can tell you all about them,” she volunteered, judging that this was perhaps the best way to relieve Gail’s embarrassment. “Number one, the gentleman who sent the flowers, is a good-looking bachelor of forty-five, whose specialty is in making big street car companies out of little ones, and Gail hadn’t been in New York a week, when he took the first vacation he’s had in ten years. He’ll probably go back to work to-morrow morning. He was the hero of the wreck.”

“No doubt a good provider,” commented Mr. Sargent, gravely checking off number one.

Even Mrs. Sargent was smiling now, but Gail was looking interestedly at the old familiar street, and marvelling that it had changed so little. It seemed impossible that she had only been gone a few weeks. She was particularly not hearing the flippant conversation in the car.

“Number two is Dick Rodley,” enumerated Arly, remembering vividly the grouping of the nine slaves. “He’s the handsomest man in the world!”

“Probably fickle.”

“Number three, Willis Cunningham. He wears a beard. I’d rather talk about number four, Houston Van Ploon,” and she babbled on with her descriptions of the nine slaves, until finally Gail laughed and helped her out.

Somehow, the returned wanderer felt lonely, even with three cars of friends following her home, as a guard of honour. That was a strange sensation. Everything was the same, all her friends were steadfast in their affection, and she was overjoyed to be back among them; yet she was lonely. Who could explain it?

Here was Main Street. Dear old busy Main Street, with its shops and its hotels and its brilliantly lighted drugstores, the latter only serving to accentuate the deserted blackness. She was sorry that she had not arrived at an earlier hour, when the windows would have been lighted and the streets busier with people; though, of course, it was always dull on Sunday night. Cricky! Sunday! She had an engagement with Houston Van Ploon to attend a concert to-night, and she had forgotten to send him word. He had been at Uncle Jim’s, stiff as a ramrod and punctual to the second, of course.

Taffy, who had been whining his newly re-aroused distress over the absence of Gail, now suddenly remembered that she was home again, and turned around with a short, sharp bark. He stuck out his tongue and rolled it at her, laughing, and his tail flopped. He quivered all over.

Now up the avenue, the dear old wide avenue, with its double rows of trees and its smooth asphalt, glistening like sprinkling rain from the quartz sand embedded in its surface, and with the prosperous looking brown stone houses lining each side of the way, every house with its lawn and its shrubbery and its glass-doored vestibule. They were nearly all alike these houses, even to lawns and shrubbery, except that some of them had no iron dogs in the grass, and others had no little white cupids holding up either a goose spouting water out of its mouth or an umbrella which furnished its own rain. They were dear houses, every one, ever so much more personal than the heartless residences of New York; and her friends lived in them. It was so good to be home!

She became more excited now. There was their own house just ahead, occupying nearly half the block, and slightly larger than the others! It was brilliantly lighted from the basement to the attic, and all the servants were either on the front steps or peeping from around the corner of the house, and old mammy Emma, who had cooked Gail’s own little individual custard pies since she was a baby, had her apron to her eyes. Gail’s heart was just plumb full! There was no place, oh, no place in all the world like home!

Taffy jumped out of the machine as it turned in at the gate, and ran up ahead to bark a proper welcome, and touched the top step with a circle like a whip-snapper, and was back again, a long brown and white streak bellying down to the grass, and prancing a circle around the machine, and leaping in the air to bark, and back up to the steps and back to the machine; then lay down in the grass and rolled over, and, jumping up, chased a cat out of the next yard, in the mere exuberance of joy; but was back again to crouch before Gail, and whine, as she stepped out of the car.

Old Plympton was there, the hollow-stomached black butler, whose long-tailed coat dropped straight from the middle of his back, and flapped against the bend of his knees when he walked. His voice trembled when he greeted Miss Gail, and old Auntie Clem, who had tended Miss Gail when she was a little girl no bigger than that, and until the fancy French maid came, just politely took her young missus upstairs to her room, and took off those heavy shoes, and made her drink her thimble glass of hot-spiced port wine. It was so good to be home!

Of course her friends had piled into the house after her, a whole chattering mob of them, and, late as the hour was, Vivian Jennings opened the piano and rattled into Auld Lang Syne, which the company sang with a ringing zest! The tears filled Gail’s eyes as she listened. They were such faithful, whole-hearted people back here! It was good to go away, now and then, just for the joy of coming home again; but one should not go too often. After all, this was a better life.

Auntie Clem triumphed. She had Miss Gail all fixed up before that fancy French maid had on her trifling little cap and her hair primped. Arly, choosing Auntie Clem instantly for her personal attendant on this brief visit, naturally refused to intrude further on the home coming, and expressed herself as frantically in love with her little blue bedroom and boudoir.

When Gail went downstairs, in a comfortable little red house gown which was tremendously artful in its simplicity, she found the whole jolly company in the big dining room, where Miles Sargent had insisted on opening something in honour of the happy event. She coloured as her father turned his twinkling eyes on her, but he did not take occasion to call her a slave driver or to tease her any further about the work of art which had driven her home. She reproached herself crossly for having suspected him of such a crudity. Of course he would not do that!

They had sandwiches, and olives, and cake, and cookies—trust Mammy Emma for that—and nuts and fruit and bonbons, and coffee, and champagne. Everybody was excited, walking around with a sandwich in one hand and an olive in the other, joking with Gail, and complimenting her, and teasing her, but in every word and look and action, showing that they loved her.

She had a new knowledge of them, an understanding of what it is like to have a whole circle of friends who have grown up from childhood together. They understood each other, and knew each other’s weaknesses and faults, so that they were not shocked when they saw evidences of them, and they knew each other’s virtues, so that they did not overestimate anything and look for too much, and they were dependent upon each other and knew it, and they were loyal; that was it! Loyal! Loyal to the very core! It was good, so good to be home!

No one thought anything about it when Howard Clemmens stayed behind, after all the rest had gone home. Howard had always done that. It was his right.

Howard was distressed in his mind about several things, and, out of a habitual acquiescence in his old assumption of leadership, and because she was tired, and because she was tender of thought toward all her old friends, she answered his very direct questions. Yes, she had finished her visit. No, she was not engaged. That atrocious newspaper article had only been a regular Sunday paper social sensation. They fastened that sort of a story on some one at least once a year. These little matters settled, Howard was himself again. He was very glad that Gail had returned to her normal mode of existence, and now that all this foolishness was over, he took the earliest opportunity to mention the little matter between them. Would Gail reconsider her answer to the question he had asked her in New York? He informed her fully as to the state of his affections, which had not changed in the least, and he rather expected that this magnanimous attitude on his part would meet with melting appreciation. He was very much astonished that it did not, and displeased when she refused him again. Confound it, he had not given her time to settle down!

She was only slightly troubled when he bade her good-night. She was sorry that she could not see the matter as he did, but there was no trace of doubt in her mind. Somehow, Howard seemed rather colourless of late. He was a dear, good boy; but she was not the kind of a girl he needed.

With only as much trouble on her brow as could be smoothed away by her fingertips, she went back into the dining room, where her father, who liked to have a table near him, was enjoying an extra cup of coffee with his cigar, and shedding the mild disapproval of Mrs. Sargent, who foresaw a restless night for him. Gail, who had not spared time for food, poured herself a glass of water, picked up one of the delicious little chicken sandwiches, and sat down, within easy leaning distance of her father, for one of the good, old-time, comfortable family chats. Taffy curled around her feet, and the group was complete.

Somehow, that inexplicable feeling of loneliness returned to her, in the midst of this most dear intimacy. What was it? No one can form far ties without leaving behind some enduring thread of spiritual communication; for better or for worse.