"I beg your pardon," repeated the girl. "I wonder if you would be good enough to bring me a drink of water--if it isn't too much trouble. I'm so thirsty. I can't very well go myself--there are reasons why I can't. And I don't think she"--with a sidelong glance toward the nodding figure opposite--"I don't think she would feel that she could go and leave me.'
"Certainly I will," said Miss Smith. "It's not a bit of bother."
"What is it?" The woman had been roused to full wakefulness by the movement of the stranger in rising.
"Please don't move," said Miss Smith. "Your young lady is thirsty and I'm going to bring her a drink of water--that's all."
"It's very good of you, miss," said the elder woman. She reached for her hand bag. "I think I've got a penny here for the cup."
"I've plenty of pennies," said Miss Smith.
At the cooler behind the forward door she filled a paper cup and brought it back to where the two were. To her surprise the elder woman reached for the cup and took it from her and held it to the girl's lips while she drank. With a profound shock of sympathy the realization went through Miss Smith that the girl had not the use of her hands.
Having drunk, the girl settled back in her former posture, her face half turned toward the window and her head drooping as if from weariness. The woman laid the emptied cup aside and at once was dozing off again. The third member of the group sat in pitying wonder. She wondered what affliction had made a cripple of this wholesome-looking bonny creature. She thought of ghastly things she had read concerning the dreadful after effects of infantile paralysis, but rejected the suggestion, because no matter what else of dread and woe the girl's eyes had betrayed the face was too plump and the body, which she could feel touching hers, too firm and well nourished to betoken a present and wasting infirmity. So then it must have been some accident--some maiming mishap which probably had not been of recent occurrence, since nothing else about the girl suggested physical impairment. If this deduction were correct, the wearing of the shrouding blue cape in an atmosphere almost stiflingly close stood explained. It was so worn to hide the injured limbs from view. That, of course, would be the plausible explanation. Yet at the same time an inner consciousness gave Miss Smith a certain and absolute conviction that the specter of tearfulness lurking at the back of those big brown eyes meant more than the ever-present realization of some bodily disfigurement.