Poppy tottering across the carriage.

"We are come," she gasped. "Oh girls, we are come! What shall we do?"

"Dorsham, Do-orsham," shouted a porter outside, in confirmation of her words, and the carriage immediately became a scene of wild confusion and excitement.

"I wonder if there is any one here to meet us," said Esther, as she tidied Poppy's dark hair and put on her hat. "Perhaps some of us had better get out and see, or they'll think we have not come."

They were all almost breathless with nervous excitement, and Esther was just popping her head out of the window to try to open the carriage door when a little lady came hurrying along the platform, her cheeks very pink, her eyes bright with anxiety. When she saw Esther she stopped, her face brightening with an expectant smile. When her eye fell on the three other little faces gazing out through the side windows with eager curiosity, her face brightened still more.

"Oh," she gasped, "are you—I think you must be the little Carrolls from Framley, my young cousins. I am Miss Charlotte Ashe, Cousin Charlotte— and I've come to meet you—are you Esther? I think you must be."

Esther's face had brightened too, with relief. This gentle little lady was so unlike the formidable stranger she had been dreading so, she felt quite at ease at once.

In another moment they were all on the platform being introduced.

"This is Penelope, and this is Poppy, the youngest of us, and this is Angela, the third," she said with the air of a proprietor, "and I am the eldest."

"I am delighted to see you all, my dears," said Miss Ashe warmly, kissing each in turn. She felt a little nervous under the fire of four pairs of enquiring eyes; there was nothing rude, though, in their stare; it was simply full of a wistful, half-incredulous pleasure. They could scarcely believe their eyes and ears that things were turning out so much less dreadful than they expected.

Then followed a moment of bustle, while the station-master and the one porter went in search of the luggage, and the children were led up to identify the various things as they should be lifted out. When they were told that the two shabby trunks were all there were to identify, disappointment was only too plainly written on the men's faces.

Seeing how little it was, the porter readily promised "to wheel it along by and by," and Miss Ashe turned away with a sigh of relief.

"Now then, chicks," she said cheerily, "we will start for home. You won't mind a walk, I hope, dears. My house is only fifteen minutes from the station. Are you very tired?" looking anxiously from one to the other, but most anxiously at Poppy.

"Oh no," they assured her politely. "We would like to walk, Cousin Charlotte," added Esther; "after sitting still so long it will be very nice," and her sisters supported her eagerly.

The engine, with a good deal of puffing and snorting, glided on its way again. The children stood to watch it, but they saw it depart without any of the regret they had expected to feel, and then the little party turned out of the station, on the last stage of their pilgrimage to their new home.

They were accustomed to the country, of course, so that their first view of Dorsham did not affect them as it would have affected a town child, but even they exclaimed with delight at the weird, wild beauty which opened out before them. The station appeared to have sprung up in the heart of a little forest of firs, as being the most sheltered spot it could alight upon in that open country, and it was not until they had walked a little way along the white road which skirted the woods, and came to the other road which led at right angles to Dorsham, that the real beauty of the place they had come to burst upon them.

Then, "Oh!" they gasped. "Oh! oh! Cousin Charlotte, how perfectly lovely! We did not think it would be a bit like this."

Angela alone did not speak; she gazed, and shivered as she gazed. She was too awed by the rugged wildness to be able to find any words—awed and rather frightened. In the beautiful evening light of the summer's day there lay before them an immense stretch of wild and rugged moorland, sloping down on either side till it met a winding silver streak at the bottom of the valley, and rolling upwards, away and away, rising and dipping, with every here and there rough boulders and tors, single or in groups, standing upon its brown bosom like rocks out of a brown sea, until in the distance high rock-crowned hills bounded and closed it in.

Then would the eye travel from the wilder beauty back to rest on the gleaming, gliding river in its rocky bed, and the group of little houses which stood about so irregularly as to give the impression that they had been dropped down promiscuously and allowed to remain as they fell; while close about each house were large gardens snatched from the wealth of wildness outside and enclosed within sturdy walls, as though to protect them from the encroaching brown sea outside.

"Oh, Cousin Charlotte," gasped Angela, "aren't you afraid to live here? It looks so—so wild and—and sad?"

Cousin Charlotte smiled. "Oh no," she cried, "it is not as lonely as it looks. There is quite a village just on beyond, but you cannot see it from here." Then noticing the look on Angela's face, "You will not be afraid, will you, children?" she asked anxiously.

"Oh no," said Esther, replying for them all. "I am sure we shall like it, Cousin Charlotte. I don't think it is as lonely as a wood really, because here you can look all about you, and can see if any one is coming. Angela is tired, I expect, and I think every place looks rather sad when night is coming on. I think she will like it soon, when she is more used to it."

"The village looks more lonely than it is really," said Cousin Charlotte. "From here it seems as though we are quite unprotected, but when we are at home that feeling will be gone. It seems then as though the moor is protecting us. There are other villages just beyond us in each direction, too, so we are not quite deserted."

"Oh, I love it, I love it!" gasped Penelope, who had been silent from the intensity of her emotion all this time. It was almost as though the sight was too much for her. She felt bewildered, overcome, full of awe and love, and a feeling she could not describe. She stood still in the wide white road, and gazed and gazed with her heart in her eyes. The others walked briskly on, Angela keeping close to Esther, her hand thrust through Esther's arm, Poppy holding Miss Ashe by one hand and Esther by the other. The road wound down in almost a straight line, until they could hear the murmuring of the river, like a welcoming voice, as it hurried along over the stones. The nearer they drew to the house and the river, the less did the moor and the hills seem to dominate them, and the feeling of home grew on them.

Just before they reached the house Penelope overtook them.

"Oh," she cried enthusiastically, "it is so lovely. I—I am sorry I have lived all my life away from it. I might have had nearly twelve more years here."

Miss Ashe laughed, well pleased. "I am so glad, children, that you think you will like it. Anna and I thought it might be dull for you. Well, here we are at last, and very glad you must be, I am sure, after your long, tiring day. This is Moor Cottage, dears, and I hope you will all be very, very happy here as long as I am allowed to keep you. It shall not," she added gravely, pausing as she stood in the porch with her hand on the latch, "be my fault if you are not."

"I am sure we shall be happy, Cousin Charlotte," said Esther earnestly, longing to throw her arms about the dear little lady, and kiss her, but feeling too shy. "I know we shall."

Angela did not only long, but she acted. "And I hope we shall make you happy, too," she cried, and throwing her arms about Miss Ashe's neck kissed her lovingly.

Cousin Charlotte's eyes were dim as she opened the door wide. "Welcome home," she cried.