the news that Mrs. Parkes was to be her escort lessened the pleasure that she was feeling at the thought of the long railway journey that lay before her, it could not by any means wholly destroy it. After all, they could sit at opposite ends of the carriage, and Margaret knew that, except when they changed trains, which they had to do once, she would be tolerably certain to forget Mrs. Parkes' presence altogether.

As soon as she had heard where she was to go, Margaret looked her destination up on the map. But Windy Gap was too small a place to be marked. Chailfield, however, was the nearest station, and that was on the map, as was also Seabourne. The latter place was a large and fashionable watering town renowned for its schools, in one of which Miss Bidwell had been a governess for some years. Many were the dictations in English, French, and German, descriptive of the town and the surrounding downs which Margaret had written, and it was strange to think that she was now about to see these places for herself.

The few days that intervened between the Thursday on which she had heard that she was to go away and the following Tuesday could not pass too quickly for Margaret, and when Monday dawned and the actual packing of her trunk could begin, she was in a high, though carefully repressed state of excitement. Lizzie, the housemaid, who had been getting her clothes ready during the last few days, fully sympathised with the eager impatience which Margaret showed that everything should be ready in time.

"For if I had had the dull time that Miss Margaret has had ever since Miss Bidwell went away, not that she was very gay company, I should be off my head with joy too."

"Is Miss Margaret off her head with joy, then?" said the kitchen-maid, to whom the remark had been addressed.

"Well, in a quiet way of her own she is," said Lizzie. "She don't sing nor dance like other young ladies would, but her eyes shine like stars, and now and again she smiles quiet to herself."

But, after all, Margaret did not have Mrs. Parkes as a travelling companion. The day before they were to start for Chailfield two things happened. Scarlet fever broke out in Clayton, and Mrs. Parkes fell down the cellar stairs and broke her leg.

"The departure of my granddaughter, who was to have left to-morrow morning by the nine-thirty train, must therefore be delayed," said Mr. Anstruther, "until I can procure for her a suitable escort."

This was said to Dr. Knowles, who had been summoned to set the broken leg.

"Departure delayed! Escort! Fiddlesticks!" said Dr. Knowles in his most staccato manner. "Don't keep her an hour longer here than necessary. In her run-down state she would be just the sort of person to go down with fever. The sooner she is away from here the better."

"But I hardly like the idea of her travelling alone," said Mr. Anstruther, who saw the reason of what the doctor said far too clearly to resent his manner. "I would have taken her myself, but it is quite impossible for me to leave home for several days——"

"Then send her alone. What on earth can happen to her? Put her in charge of the guard, engine-driver, inspector, every official on the line, but don't keep her here another day. It would be wicked to let her run unnecessary risks."

As it was then ten o'clock at night, and Margaret was to start so early the next morning, it was impossible to find any one to go with her, especially as Dr. Knowles had warned her grandfather against bringing her in contact with any one in the infected village. After all, he thought, Dr. Knowles was right, and no harm could come to her through travelling alone. It was not even as though she were going through London. The journey was a perfectly simple one, and involved only one change at a place called Carden Junction. If he spoke to the guard at Clayton, and told him to put the young lady into the Southern Express at the junction, she would be well looked after the whole way.

CHAPTER IV

MARGARET MAKES A FRIEND

But in making this arrangement the next morning, Mr. Anstruther, as did the guard also, reckoned without the train being delayed for over an hour when some fifteen miles from Carden Junction, and consequently missing the connection with the Southern Express at the latter station.

"I am sorry to say, Miss, you will have to wait here for two hours and a half," said the guard, as he helped the young lady who had been given into his charge to alight. "I will carry your bag for you to the waiting-room. It's a slow one, too, the next train, and don't get into Seabourne until 7.10, whereas the express you have just missed would have got you there at 3.45."

"I do not mind at all, thank you," said Margaret blithely, as she walked down the platform beside him with light steps. "I really think it's great fun missing a train, and having to wait for the next."

"Then, Miss, you're the first passenger I ever met who looked at it in that way," said the guard in some astonishment. "Well, I must be going on, for, as we're late already, we don't stop any time here. Good morning, Miss, sorry I couldn't have done more for you, and put you in charge of the next guard, as the gentleman asked. But you will be all right in the waiting-room. Your train leaves at 2.17."

"Thank you," said Margaret. "I will not forget. Good morning."

She was delighted to see him go, and when the train steamed out of the station, which it did a few minutes later, a sense of freedom, as novel as it was delightful, took possession of her. For a few hours, at least, she was absolutely her own mistress. There was no one to tell her to do this, when she would rather have done the other, no one even to tell her to remain where she was if she wished to go for a walk. And to go for a walk was just what she intended to do. She certainly did not intend to spend the next two hours in this stuffy little waiting-room, whose one window commanded a view of nothing more exciting than the station yard. She would go into the town and look at the shops.

It was true that the sky seemed rather overcast, but the clouds were probably only passing ones, and the sun would shine out again in a few minutes. Turning abruptly from the window she was hurrying towards the door, when a voice close beside her remarked that she was leaving her bag behind. Swinging round in amazement, for she had thought that she was alone, she perceived that the room now contained another occupant who must have entered it while she was staring out of the window. A girl of about her own age was seated at the table with a couple of books and an exercise book spread out before her, and as Margaret looked at her she just pointed with her pencil at the dressing bag which the guard had placed on a chair, and went on writing again immediately.

Margaret thought her one of the prettiest girls she ever seen, and though that would have been saying a great deal less for her than Margaret realised, for after all she had not seen many girls pretty or otherwise, this girl was undoubtedly exceedingly good-looking. She had masses of wavy chestnut hair, red-brown eyes, and a clear, pale skin.

Arrested thus suddenly on her way to the door by this unexpected remark, Margaret halted rather awkwardly in the middle of the room uncertain what to do about her bag.

"I am going for a walk into the town," she said shyly, "and my bag is too heavy for me to carry with me. May I not leave it here?"