, till
her hat was nearly carried off. This was the first railway journey she
had made by herself, and there was an intoxicating sense of freedom in
being locked in, alone, within the narrow compass of the compartment.
She was at liberty to do everything that had previously been forbidden
her: she walked up and down the carriage, jumped from one seat to
another, then lay flat on her back singing to herself, and watching the
telegraph poles fly past the windows, and the wires mount and
descend.--But now came a station and, though the train did not stop,
she sat up, in order that people might see she was travelling alone.

She grew hungry and attacked her lunch, and it turned out that Mother
had not provided too much after all. When she had finished, had brushed
herself clean of crumbs and handled, till her finger-tips were sore,
the pompous half-crown she had found in her pocket, she fell to
thinking of them at home, and of what they would now be doing. It was
between two and three o'clock: the sun would be full on the flagstones
of the back verandah; inch by inch Pin and Leppie would be driven away
to find a cooler spot for their afternoon game, while little Frank
slept, and Sarah splashed the dinner-dishes in the brick-floored
kitchen. Mother sat sewing, and she would still be sitting there, still
sewing, when the shadow of the fir tree, which at noon was shrunken
like a dwarf, had stretched to giant size, and the children had opened
the front gate to play in the shade of the public footpath.--At the
thought of these shadows, of all the familiar things she would not see
again for months to come, Laura's eyelids began to smart.

They had flashed through several stations; now they stopped; and her
mind was diverted by the noise and bustle. As the train swung into
motion again, she fell into a pleasanter line of thought. She painted
to herself, for the hundredth time, the new life towards which she was
journeying, and, as always, in the brightest colours.

She had arrived at school, and in a spacious apartment, which was a
kind of glorified Mother's drawing-room, was being introduced to a bevy
of girls. They clustered round, urgent to make the acquaintance of the
newcomer, who gave her hand to each with an easy grace and an
appropriate word. They were too well-bred to cast a glance at her
clothes, which, however she might embellish them in fancy, Laura knew
were not what they ought to be: her ulster was some years old,