Every day here seems to add to her difficulty in leaving home.
I shall say nothing to her of West Point until it is settled one way or
another. I shall, of course, go to the Cape for a day, unless your aunt's
brother Charles will take my place when he brings Leila to Philadelphia
to meet us. I may be gone a week, and you and Rivers are to keep
bachelor's hall and watch the work on the parsonage. I shall ask Leila to
write to you and to me about your aunt. Did I say that we go by the
9:30 A.M. express?"
"No, sir."
"Well, we do."
James Penhallow was pleased and amazed when he discovered that Mrs. Ann
was quietly submissive to the arrangements made for her comfort on the
journey. She appeared to have abruptly regained her good temper and,
Penhallow thought, was unnaturally and excessively grateful for every
small service. Being unused to the ways of sick women, he wondered as the
train ran down the descent from the Allegheny Mountains how long a time
was required to know any human being entirely. He had been introduced
within two weeks to two Ann Penhallows besides the Ann he had lived with
these many years. He concluded, as others have done, that people are hard
to understand, and thus thinking he ran over in mind the group they left
on the platform at Westways Crossing.
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