Phyllis | Page 7

dreamily. "How silly I've been to worry whether she will like it or not. Of course she will, and oh, joy of joys, she will be here in less than, let me see, eight hours." She jumped out of bed and in a few minutes she was singing in her bath.
"Phyllis, Phyllis, if you don't stop acting like a crazy person I don't know what I shall do," Miss Carter sighed later in the morning as Phyllis, growing more and more excited as the minutes passed, flew upstairs and down, upsetting everything in her effort to keep busy.
"I know, Aunt Mogs, but I can't help it. I shall probably die before the train gets in," Phyllis confessed as she sat down at last and tried to concentrate on a book. But the print danced before her eyes, and in not more than a minute she was up again.
"I knew I'd forgotten something!" she exclaimed.
"What is it now?" her aunt inquired, smiling gently.
"Flowers. The ones I bought day before yesterday are all wilted. Oh, I know you told me they would be, but don't say, 'I told you so,' please."
"No, I won't. I'm almost glad they have wilted; they will give you something to do. Hurry out and get some more, and be sure they are buds this time."
Phyllis hurried to the nearest florist and then took as long as she possibly could to select the roses. When she reached home she was disgusted to find that she had been gone only twenty minutes. But the morning passed somehow, and although Phyllis insisted upon a ridiculously early start in case the traffic should delay them, they were only a quarter of an hour ahead of train time.
The huge station was crowded with people, and Phyllis looked at them doubtfully.
"Auntie Mogs, if Janet ever got lost in this mob we would never find her in all this world," she said nervously.
"It might be a difficult task," Miss Carter agreed calmly, "but Tom is with her, and it would be very hard to lose Tom even here."
"Oh, I was forgetting all about Tom." Phyllis laughed with relief. "It would be hard to hide his six feet, wouldn't it? Oh, dear, that sounds as though he were a centipede, but you know what I mean."
"I do sometimes, my darling,"--Miss Carter laughed into Phyllis's eyes--"but sometimes, I must admit, you race too far ahead of me. Do try and quiet down before Janet comes."
"Oh, but she loves me just the way I am," Phyllis announced airily, "and so does Tommy. Look now, it's only ten minutes."
She kept her eyes fastened to the blackboard until the announcer called the number of the track and wrote it down in his slow deliberate hand. From that minute to the time when the first porter came up the stairs and through the gate seemed an eternity, but at last Tom's head and shoulders appeared above the crowd.
"Here they are, Janet," he called, but even that was not necessary, for the twins had found each other, in spite of bobbing hats and sharp-pointed umbrellas, and were in each other's arms. Phyllis, as usual, was doing all the talking, and Janet, a little confused, accepted it as a fitting ending to the amazing dream that had begun that morning when she watched the Old Chester station fade into the distance.
After a description of Phyllis, it is useless to give one of Janet, for except for the difference in the expression of their eyes the girls were the image of each other. Even the difference in their dress did not disguise the startling resemblance, and people turned to stare and then to smile as Phyllis's infectious laughter reached them.
"Wait here and I'll find a taxi," Tom directed, as they reached the open rotunda that led to the street.
In a minute they were all comfortably seated in a cab and had joined the procession of slow-moving vehicles that were trying to gain the avenue.
"To think you are really here," Phyllis sighed, as though the greatest event of her life were over.
"I'm not a bit sure that I am,"--Janet laughed. "I've been begging Tommy to pinch me all the way down in the train. I thought surely I would wake up any minute and hear Martha say, 'It's time to get up, child.'"
"I didn't do it though, because I thought the other people in the train might not understand," Tom said with amusement.
"Where is your dog?" Miss Carter asked suddenly, and Janet's face fell.
"Grandmother decided I mustn't bring Boru," she answered with a little catch in her voice.
Her aunt took her hand impulsively and squeezed it. "But, my dear, that is absolutely absurd. You will be miserable without him, especially when everything is new to you. I will write up to Mrs. Page to-night