At length she shook off these pursuing thoughts and deliberately roused herself to plan her future.

The first necessity, she decided, was to change her appearance so far as possible, so that if news of her escape, with full description, had been telegraphed, she might evade notice.  To that end, she arose in the early dawning of a gray and misty morning, and arranged her hair as she had never worn it before, in two braids and wound closely about her head.  It was neat, and appropriate to the vocation which she had decided upon, and it made more difference in her appearance than any other thing she could have done.  All the soft, fluffy fulness of rippling hair that had framed her face was drawn close to her head, and the smooth bands gave her the simplicity and severity of a saint in some old picture.  She pinned up her gown until it did not show below the long black coat, and folded a white linen handkerchief about her throat over the delicate lace and garniture of the modish waist.  Then she looked dubiously at the hat.

With a girl’s instinct, her first thought was for her borrowed plumage.  A fine mist was slanting down and had fretted the window-pane until there was nothing visible but dull gray shadows of a world that flew monotonously by.  With sudden remembrance, she opened the suit-case and took out the folded black hat, shook it into shape, and put it on.  It was mannish, of course, but girls often wore such hats.

As she surveyed herself in the long mirror of her door, the slow color stole into her cheeks.  Yet the costume was not unbecoming, nor unusual.  She looked like a simple schoolgirl, or a young business woman going to her day’s work.

But she looked at the fashionable proportions of the other hat with something like alarm.  How could she protect it?  She did not for a moment think of abandoning it, for it was her earnest desire to return it at once, unharmed, to its kind purloiner.

She summoned the newsboy and purchased three thick newspapers.  From these, with the aid of a few pins, she made a large package of the hat.  To be sure, it did not look like a hat when it was done, but that was all the better.  The feathers were upheld and packed softly about with bits of paper crushed together to make a springy cushion, and the whole built out and then covered over with paper.  She reflected that girls who wore their hair wound about their heads and covered by plain felt hats would not be unlikely to carry large newspaper-wrapped packages through the city streets.

She decided to go barehanded, and put the white kid gloves in the suit-case, but she took off her beautiful rings, and hid them safely inside her dress.

When the porter came to announce that her breakfast was waiting in the dining-car, he looked at her almost with a start, but she answered his look with a pleasant, “Good morning.  You see I’m fixed for a damp day.”

“Yes, miss,” said the man deferentially.  “It’s a nasty day outside.  I ’spect Chicago’ll be mighty wet.  De wind’s off de lake, and de rain’s comin’ from all way ’twoncet.”