ery fields, so step out and put your best foot
foremost."

CHAPTER VII.

THE JOURNEY AND THE ARRIVAL.

Harry Lang's "short cut" to the next station meant a good two hours
of heavy walking, sometimes over rough uneven ground, sometimes
through a little coppice, or along a quiet lane, all of them unknown
to Jessie. For this very reason, perhaps, the way seemed even longer
than it really was, but to the poor exhausted child it seemed
endless. Her head ached distractingly, her back and legs ached, and
her feet had almost refused to do her bidding long before she reached
the station.

Her father noticed that she lagged, but it never occurred to him that
the real reason was that she was exhausted--at least it did not occur
to him until, when they at last reached the refreshment room, Jessie
dropped like a stone upon the floor.

"What are you doing?" he snapped crossly, "get up! Can't you see
where you are going?"

But Jessie neither saw, nor heard, nor moved. The kindly-faced woman
behind the counter first leaned out over it to look at her, then came
around.

"Why, she's in a dead faint," she cried, lifting the limp little
hand; "has she walked far? She looks dead beat."

Harry Lang muttered something about "just a mile or so," but he did
not enlarge on the subject, and he seemed so morose and surly that no
one felt drawn to say more to him than they could help. The woman
lifted Jessie up, and laid her gently on a couch, but she had bathed
her brow and her hands, and held smelling-salts under her nose for
quite a long while before she showed any signs of life, and Harry
Lang had wished himself miles away, and regretted his day's work many
times before Jessie with a deep, deep sigh at last opened her eyes.

For a moment she looked about her uncomprehendingly; then, as
realization came to her, the woman bending over her heard her moan
despairingly.

"Is she ill?" she asked.

"No," said Harry Lang curtly, "only a bit tired and upset at having
to leave the folks that brought her up. Maybe she's hungry; we've
walked a good step to get here, and we haven't had a bite of
anything. I'm hungry myself, so I dare say she is. Hungry, Jessie?"

"I want to go home, I must--I must. Oh, let me go," moaned Jessie
wildly, looking up at him beseechingly; but at sight of his face she
shrank back frightened, and the words died on her lips.

"You are going home as fast as I can take you," he said roughly; "if
you