Paul Ralston by Mary Jane Holmes

The boat was beginning to stop, and the passengers were hurrying from the deck, which Elithe was almost the last to leave. On the wharf crowds of people were gathered,-hundreds it seemed to her,-and by the time she was in their midst, pushed and jostled and deafened by the hackmen's cries for the different hotels, she lost her head completely and wondered how she was ever to get through it, and if her aunt were there and how she was to know her, and what had become of her trunk. She found it at last on top of a Saratoga, with both hinges broken now and the lid kept in place by the rope, but still pushed up enough to show a bit of her second best dress through the aperture. It did look strange perched on top of the handsome Saratoga, but she did not realize how strange till she heard some one near her say very impatiently, "My gracious, how came this rubbish here! I hope you don't think it belongs to me. Can't you read the name, Elithe Hansford, on it? Take it away."

Turning, she saw Clarice Percy ordering a porter to remove the obnoxious baggage, which he did with a bang. Close behind her was Paul Ralston, who, the moment he saw her, called out cheerily, "Oh, here you are. I've looked everywhere for you, thinking you might get dazed in this infernal jam, the biggest, I do believe, I've ever seen here. Everybody in town has come to meet somebody, and the rest to look on. Clarice, this is Miss Elithe Hansford from Montana. You remember, I told you she was on the boat. Miss Hansford, Miss Percy."