was going to be there for a fortnight.
And she's very kind. We would ask her to lend us money enough to go back
to the Junction, and then we'd be all right. You have got your ticket
for Hill Horton, and we have our returns for home.'

'Oh,' cried Margaret, 'how clever you are to have thought of it, Giles!
But,' and the bright look went out of her face, 'you don't think she'd
make me go back to the witch, do you? Are you sure she wouldn't?'

'I really don't think she would,' I said. 'I know she has often been
sorry for you, for she knew you weren't at all happy. And we'd tell her
more about it. She is awfully kind.'

I meant what I said. Perhaps I saw it rather too favourably; the idea of
finding a friend in London was such a comfort just then, that I felt as
if everything else might be left for the time. I never thought about
catching trains at the Junction or about its getting late and dark for
Margaret to be travelling alone from there to Hill Horton, or anything,
except just the hope--the tremendous hope--that we might find our kind
old lady.

[Illustration: HE LOOKED AT THE TICKETS . . . 'HOW'S THIS?' HE
SAID.--p. 145.]

The train slackened, and very soon we pulled up. It wasn't the station
yet, however, but the place where they stop to take tickets, just
outside. I know it so well now, for we pass it ever so often on our way
from and to school several times a year. But whenever we pass it, or
stop at it, I think of that miserable day and all my fears.

The man put his head in at the window. He was a stranger.

'Tickets, please,' he said.

I was ready for him--tickets, Peterkin's half-sovereign, and all. I held
out the tickets.

'There's been a mistake,' I began. 'I shall have to pay up,' and when he
heard that, he opened the door and came in.

He looked at the tickets.

'Returns--half-returns to the Junction,' he said, 'and a half to Hill
Horton. How's this?'

'We got into the wrong train at the Junction,' I replied. 'In fact, we
got back into the same one we had just got out of. I expect the guard
thought I said "Victoria" when I said "Hill Horton," for he told us to
go to the front.'

'And didn't he tell you, you were wrong when he looked at the tickets
before you started?' the man asked, still holding our tickets in his
hand and examining us rather queerly.

I began to feel angry, but I didn't want to have any fuss, so instead of
telling him to mind his own business, as I was ready to pay the