Mrs. Wood and her two children accompanied the orphan, and as they drove through the woods, myriads of fireflies starred the gloom. It was dark when they reached the station, and Willis brought the trunks from the hotel, and found seats for the party in the cars, which were rapidly filling with passengers. Presently the down-train from Knoxville came thundering in, and the usual rush and bustle ensued.
Mrs. Wood gave the orphan a hearty kiss and warm embrace, and bidding her "Be sure to write soon, and say how you are getting along!" the kind-hearted woman left the cars, wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron.
At last the locomotive signalled that all was ready; and as the train moved on, Edna caught a glimpse of a form standing under a lamp, leaning with folded arms against the post--a form strangely like Mr. Murray's. She leaned out and watched it till the cars swept round a curve, and lamp and figure and village vanished. How could he possibly be in Chattanooga? The conjecture was absurd; she was the victim of some optical illusion. With a long, heavily-drawn sigh, she leaned against the window-frame and looked at the dark mountain mass looming behind her; and after a time, when the storm drew nearer, she saw it only now and then, as "A vivid, vindictive, and serpentine flash Gored the darkness, and shore it across with a gash."