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The lady frowned inquiringly.

“Are you still ill, Josephine?”

“No, Mrs. Kimono.”

“Aren’t you hungry?”

“Dreadful.” Indeed, the hunger was evident enough.

“Then why don’t you take some heartier food? If you’re bashful— Yet you’re certainly not that. If you’re hungry, child, for goodness sake eat.”

“It’s for goodness sake I can’t. I daren’t. It wouldn’t be right. Maybe I can eat my dinner. Maybe.”

Tears were very near the big brown eyes, but the sweet little face was turned resolutely away from the table toward the window and the sights outside. One spoonful of unsweetened, flavorless meal was gulped down, and the trembling lips remarked:

“It’s all begun again, hasn’t it?”

“What’s begun, Josephine?”

“The all-out-doors to go by and by us, like it did last night.”

“It is we who are going by the ‘all-out-doors,’ dear. The train moves, the landscape stands still. Were you never on the cars before?” inquired the lady.

“Never, not in all my whole life.”

“Indeed! But that’s not been such a long time, after all.”