of finance, she said
a settlement could be arranged when the outing was over. Other
passengers entered, including two lads, who set at once on the work of
studying scientific books; Miss Radford, changing her manner, dropped
her parasol as the train started, and one of the youths picked it up,
without disengaging his attention from the volume, and handed it to her.

"Thanks awfully," she said, in refined and slightly languid tones; "I
am such a clumsy creature"--partly addressing her friend, but mainly
speaking to the entire compartment. "Really, I seem quite lost without
my maid to look after me."

"You managed to get away from the shop in good time," remarked Gertie.

"What an irritating girl you are, to be sure!" whispered Miss Radford
aggrievedly. "No help at all when I'm trying to make a good
impression. Wish now I hadn't asked you to come along with me; I only
did it because I couldn't get any one else. What's become of that
young swell I saw you with on Primrose Hill?"

"I really don't know."

Miss Radford spoke complacently of her intense love of the country and
keen anticipation of the joy to be found at Burnham Beeches, and when
the train stopped at Slough the compartment mentioned to her that this
was where she ought to alight. Gertie, interposing, said that they
were, in reality, going further. On Miss Radford asking, in astonished
tones, "Whatever for?" she received information that the desire was to
get well away from the crowd. The two, changing at a junction, found a
small train on another platform that had but a single line; Miss
Radford took the precaution of inquiring of the engine-driver whether
he considered it safe. The two lads crossed the bridge, and, to her
intense annoyance, entered a smoking-compartment.

"I daresay, perhaps"--recovering from this blow--"that we shall manage
to run across some others before the day's out."

"Hope not."

"Well, upon my word," declared the astonished Miss Radford, "you grow
more and more peculiar every day!"

They discovered themselves, immediately after leaving the station yard,
in an old-fashioned town with large houses close to the brick pavement;
cyclists raced along the narrow roadway, and folk carried baskets in
the direction of the river. Gertie stopped to put an inquiry to a
policeman, and declined to satisfy her companion's curiosity either in
regard to the question or to the answer. Turning to the right, they
came to a market-plac