Page:Wiggin--Ladies-in-waiting.djvu/18

    the tailor-made girl looked at him reproachfully. “You know she’s got nobody and nothing to come back to. She’s given up her room. She’s quarreled with her beastly uncle at last; all her belongings are in the hold of the steamer, and she’s made up her mind.”

“All ashore that’s going ashore!” The clarion tones of the steward rang through the air for the third time, and the loud beating of the ship’s gong showed that the last moment had come. The gangplank was removed and the great liner pushed off and slowly wended her way down-river, some of the more faithful ones in the crowd waving handkerchiefs until she was a blur in the distance.

“Well, there’s no truer way of showing loyalty than by going to Hoboken to see a friend off,” said the eyeglassed chap as he walked beside Jessie Macleod to the ferry. “I would n’t do it for anybody but Tommy.”

“Nor I!” exclaimed the rosy youth. “Good old Tommy! I wonder whether she’ll sing and have a career, or fall in love over there?”