e locality stank of docks and offices. The array of
dogcarts daily drawn up outside the little station, in punctual awaiting
of the five o'clock train, betrayed the business atmosphere. As Leonore
did not see it, well, well. Nay, all the better----

"Don't, for Heaven's sake, any of you unsettle her," ordered he, aside.
"She's in precious snug quarters, and has the wit to know it."

But now a strange and hitherto stifled sensation was stealing dimly into
Leo's breast. How blue the mists were, how noble that range of forest in
the distance--how broad and lonely and inviting that straight road with
only a solitary cart upon it! There was the old red-roofed homestead she
remembered so well at this point. There were the huge ricks and ample
outbuildings. There were the smoking teams being unharnessed from the
plough.

It seemed to her that she had seen them there often and often before,
doing the same--and as the thought arose, another followed; of course
they were; it was at this hour, by the self-same train, that she and
Godfrey had always passed that way.

And she had always selected the same corner seat in the train, and gazed
from the window--Godfrey being immersed in his paper, and indifferent to
the view. At the thought of Godfrey she caught her breath and
sighed,--but after a while the past drifted again into the present.

Who would come to meet her? She had half expected an escort all the
way, and been relieved when none was proposed, for to talk would have
been an effort,--but of course one or perhaps two sisters would be on
the platform when she stepped out? Or perhaps her father--she shrank
with a sudden qualm.

Not that she was precisely afraid of the general; he was too uniformly
urbane and approving towards herself for that,--but was it possible that
he was never quite natural? Had she not invariably the feeling of being
treated by him as _company_? As some one towards whom he was bound to be
agreeable and jocular? The quick, terse reply, and the occasional
frowning undertone--the family undertone--were not for her, any more
than for Godfrey; and whereas every one else in the house was liable to
be snapped up and made to understand that an opinion was of no account,
she, Leo, the youngest and presumably most insignificant of General
Boldero's offspring, might say what she chose, unchecked.

It had all been pleasant enough, only--only now--now she would as soon
not see a certain grey wide-awake upon the