nd and
flatten itself, yielding to the sky an altogether disproportionate share
of the prospect--at any rate in eyes accustomed to the close elms and
crooked hedgerows of Warwickshire.

She withdrew her gaze at last, and glancing up the long platform spied her
solitary trunk, as absurdly forlorn as herself. A tall man--the
stationmaster--bent over it, examining the label, and she walked towards
him, glancing up as she passed the station clock.

"No use your looking at _him_," said the station-master, straightening
himself up in time to observe the glance. "He never kept time yet, and
don't mean to begin. Breaks my heart, he do."

"How far is it from here to Troy?"

"Three miles and a half, we reckon it; but you may call it four, counting
the hills."

"Oh, there are hills, are there?" said Hester, and looking around she
blushed; for indeed the country was hilly on three sides of her and flat
only in the direction whither she had been staring after the train.

The stationmaster did not observe her confusion. "Were you expecting
anyone to meet you, miss?" he asked.

"Yes, from Troy. A Mr. Benny--Mr. Peter Benny." She felt for the letter
in her pocket.

The stationmaster's smile broadened. "Peter Benny? To be sure--a
punctual man, too, but with a terrible long family. And when a man has a
long family, and leaves these little things to 'em--But someone will be
here, miss, sooner or later. And this will be your luggage?"

"Three miles and a half, you say?--or four at the most?" Hester stood
considering, while her eyes wandered across to a siding beyond the
up-platform, where three men stood in talk before a goods van.
Two of them were porters; the third--a young fellow in blue jersey, blue
cloth trousers, and a peaked cap--was apparently persuading them to open
the van, which they no sooner did than he leapt inside. Hester heard him
calling from within the van and the two porters laughing. "Four miles?"
She turned to the station-master again. "I can walk that easily.
You have a cloak-room, I suppose, where I can leave my trunk?"

"I'll take it home with me, miss, for safety: that is, if you're really
bent on walking." He jerked his thumb toward a cottage on the slope
behind. "No favour at all. I'm just going back to breakfast, and it
won't take me a minute to fetch out a barrow and run it home.
Whoever comes for your luggage will know where to call. You'd best give
me your handbag too."

"Tha