full of "red tape" notions. She felt angrier than she could
express, especially at the cool way in which the man had told her to
wait till eight o'clock. Eight o'clock! It was impossible. Why, Aunt
Barbara would think she was lost or stolen! She was late enough as it
was, and other two hours would be dreadful. Then, again, there was the
question of her ticket. The official evidently would not accept her word
for the contract if she could not produce the actual piece of
pasteboard, and she had no money to book with. Should she run back to
Lindenlea and ask Alison to lend her the fare? No; Mrs. Clarke might
have returned by now, and it would make such a fuss. Dorothy always
hated to ask favours, or put herself in a false position. She felt that
to turn up at the house again, wanting to borrow a few pence, would be a
most undignified proceeding, and would exhibit her in an unfavourable
light to her school-mate's mother.

"I'd rather walk home than do that," she said to herself.

The idea was a good one. Why should she not walk home? It was only about
four miles, and she would arrive at Hurford much sooner than if she
waited for the train. To be sure, it was growing very dusk, but she was
not in the least afraid. "I'm perfectly capable of taking care of
myself," she thought. "If I met a tramp and he attacked me, I'd belabour
him with my umbrella. But I've nothing on me worth stealing; my brooch
is only an eighteenpenny one, and I don't possess a watch."

Dorothy generally made up her mind quickly, so without further delay
she walked down the station incline and turned on to the high road that
led to Hurford. She had soon passed through the straggling village of
Latchworth, where lights were already beginning to appear in cottage
windows, and labourers were returning home from work. As she passed the
last little stone-roofed dwelling she looked back almost regretfully,
for it seemed like leaving civilization behind her. In front the road
stretched straight and white between high hedges, without ever a
friendly chimney to show that human beings were near.

Dorothy suddenly remembered all the tales that Martha had told her, in
her childhood, of children who were stolen by gipsies and carried away
in caravans to sell brooms or dance in a travelling circus. She knew
that Martha had rubbed in the moral so as to deter her from straying out
of the gate of Holly Cottage when she was left to play alone in the
garden, and that the