d train, since I could the better
observe the country than in the swifter Express. As I drew near the end
of my journey, my pulses began to quicken with nervousness, not unmixed
with dread.

Captain Green, under whose care I had been placed when I left my home for
the last eight years, had concluded, no doubt very wisely, that I could
travel the remaining few miles through quiet county places alone. This
last one hundred and fifty miles, however, had been the most trying part
of the whole journey. My English was a trifle halting; all our teachers
spoke German as their mother tongue at the school, and the last two years
I was the only English-born pupil. Captain Green was an old East Indian
officer, like my own dead father, and very readily undertook the care of
a troublesome chit of a girl across the ocean, in memory of the strong
friendship subsisting between himself and my father, now long since
passed to other service than that of Her Gracious Majesty. The Captain
was a very silent man, and therefore not calculated to help me to a
better acquaintance of any language, while he did not encourage me to
make friends with my traveling companions. The journey had been therefore
a very quiet one to me, but I had found it delightful. I had, like most
of our species, an innate love of the sea; and the long, still hours as I
sat alone gazing out over the restless waters, have left one of the
pleasantest of all the pictures hanging in memory's halls.

As I did not wish to be taken, even by the chance traveling companions of
a few hours, for other than an English or American girl, I resolved to
speak fewest possible words to any one on the journey; and when the
conductor came for my ticket, I repressed the desire to ask him to tell
me when my own station would be reached, and merely shook my head at the
news agents who were more troublesome, if possible, than the dust and
smoke which poured in at doors and windows. Captain Green had telegraphed
my guardian the hour at which I would arrive, but I got so interested
watching the busy crowds on the streets from my hotel window that, for a
while, I forgot that I too needed a measure of their eager haste, if I
were soon to terminate this long journey over land and sea. I was
beginning to fear, at last, after the cars had been in motion some hours,
that I might have passed my station; so I concluded to have my question
carefully written down, and the next time the conductor came near m