s past, and a broad smile of sunshine ran over
their face, and showed where cultivation was creeping up the hillside
and turning the heather into fields.

Eleanor leaned out of the window also. Excitement, which set me
chattering, always made her silent. But her parted lips, distended
nostrils, and the light in her eyes bore witness to that strange power
which hill country sways over hill-born people. To me it was beautiful,
but to her it was home. I better understood now, too, her old complaints
of the sheltered (she called it _stuffy_) lane in which we walked two
and two when we "went into the country" at school. She used to rave
against the park palings that hedged us in on either side, and declare
her longing to tear them up and let a little air in, or at least to be
herself somewhere where "one could see a few miles about one, and
breathe some wind."

As we stood now, drinking in the breeze, I think the same thought struck
us both, and we exclaimed with one voice: "Poor Matilda! How she would
have enjoyed this!"

We next stopped at a rather dreary-looking station, where we got out,
and Eleanor got our luggage together, aided by a porter who seemed to
know her, and whom she seemed to understand, though his dialect was
unintelligible to me.

"I suppose we must have a cab," said Eleanor, at last. "They don't
expect us."

"_Tommusisinttarn_," said the porter suggestively; which, being
interpreted, meant, "Thomas is in the town."

"To be sure, for the meat," said Eleanor. "The dog-cart, I suppose?"

"And t'owd mare," added the porter.

"Well, the boxes must come by the carrier. Come along, Margery, if you
don't mind a little bit of walking. We must find Thomas. We have to send
down to the town for meat," she added.

We found Thomas in the yard of a small inn. He was just about to start
homewards.

By Eleanor's order, Thomas lifted me into the dog-cart, and then, to my
astonishment, asked "Miss Eleanor" if she would drive. Eleanor nodded,
and, climbing on to the driver's seat, took the reins with reassuring
calmness. Thomas balanced the meat-basket behind, and "t'owd mare"
started at a good pace up a hill which would have reduced most
south-country horses to crawl.

"Father and Mother are away still," said Eleanor, after a pause. "So
Thomas says. But they'll be back in a day or two."

We were driving up a sandy road such as we had seen winding over the
hills. To our left there was a precipitous descent to