ly for the last time at the coarse and
clumsy writing which her own delicate hand had produced; and rose to
post the letter herself, before she entered next on the serious business
of packing up. "Curious!" she thought, when the letter had been posted,
and she was back again making her traveling preparations in her own
room; "here I am, running headlong into a frightful risk--and I never
was in better spirits in my life!"

The boxes were ready when the fly was at the door, and Miss Gwilt was
equipped (as becomingly as usual) in her neat traveling costume. The
thick veil, which she was accustomed to wear in London, appeared on
her country straw bonnet for the first time. "One meets such rude men
occasionally in the railway," she said to the landlady. "And though I
dress quietly, my hair is so very remarkable." She was a little paler
than usual; but she had never been so sweet-tempered and engaging, so
gracefully cordial and friendly, as now, when the moment of departure
had come. The simple people of the house were quite moved at taking
leave of her. She insisted on shaking hands with the landlord--on
speaking to him in her prettiest way, and sunning him in her brightest
smiles. "Come!" she said to the landlady, "you have been so kind, you
have been so like a mother to me, you must give me a kiss at parting."
She embraced the children all together in a lump, with a mixture of
humor and tenderness delightful to see, and left a shilling among them
to buy a cake. "If I was only rich enough to make it a sovereign," she
whispered to the mother, "how glad I should be!" The awkward lad who ran
on errands stood waiting at the fly door. He was clumsy, he was frowsy,
he had a gaping mouth and a turn-up nose; but the ineradicable female
delight in being charming accepted him, for all that, in the character
of a last chance. "You dear, dingy John!" she said, kindly, at the
carriage door. "I am so poor I have only sixpence to give you--with my
very best wishes. Take my advice, John--grow to be a fine man, and find
yourself a nice sweetheart! Thank you a thousand times!" She gave him
a friendly little pat on the cheek with two of her gloved fingers, and
smiled, and nodded, and got into the fly.

"Armadale next!" she said to herself as the carriage drove off.

Allan's anxiety not to miss the train had brought him to the station
in better time than usual. After taking his ticket and putting his
portmanteau under the porter's charge, h