ll enow. Th' carriage is waitin' outside for thee."

A brougham stood on the road before the little outside platform. Mary
saw that it was a smart carriage and that it was a smart footman who
helped her in. His long waterproof coat and the waterproof covering of
his hat were shining and dripping with rain as everything was, the burly
station-master included.

When he shut the door, mounted the box with the coachman, and they drove
off, the little girl found herself seated in a comfortably cushioned
corner, but she was not inclined to go to sleep again. She sat and
looked out of the window, curious to see something of the road over
which she was being driven to the queer place Mrs. Medlock had spoken
of. She was not at all a timid child and she was not exactly frightened,
but she felt that there was no knowing what might happen in a house with
a hundred rooms nearly all shut up--a house standing on the edge of a
moor.

"What is a moor?" she said suddenly to Mrs. Medlock.

"Look out of the window in about ten minutes and you'll see," the woman
answered. "We've got to drive five miles across Missel Moor before we
get to the Manor. You won't see much because it's a dark night, but you
can see something."

Mary asked no more questions but waited in the darkness of her corner,
keeping her eyes on the window. The carriage lamps cast rays of light a
little distance ahead of them and she caught glimpses of the things they
passed. After they had left the station they had driven through a tiny
village and she had seen whitewashed cottages and the lights of a public
house. Then they had passed a church and a vicarage and a little
shop-window or so in a cottage with toys and sweets and odd things set
out for sale. Then they were on the highroad and she saw hedges and
trees. After that there seemed nothing different for a long time--or at
least it seemed a long time to her.

At last the horses began to go more slowly, as if they were climbing
up-hill, and presently there seemed to be no more hedges and no more
trees. She could see nothing, in fact, but a dense darkness on either
side. She leaned forward and pressed her face against the window just as
the carriage gave a big jolt.

"Eh! We're on the moor now sure enough," said Mrs. Medlock.

The carriage lamps shed a yellow light on a rough-looking road which
seemed to be cut through bushes and low growing things which ended in
the great expanse of dark apparently spread out