any means an object which any would be likely to
watch for five minutes at a stretch in a strong north-easter. But that
was exactly what a palish girl with freckles on her nose had been doing
for that length of time, and so intent was she on her own thoughts that
she held a loose strand of hair in her hand instead of tucking it under
her cap while she stood there with eyes fixed intently on the little
ticket-window.

Her eyes were light--a greenish-grey flecked with gold--but they were
very bright with dark lashes and themselves appeared quite dark when
she was moved or excited. Nobody ever seemed to know what colour they
were, not even the young fellow with whom she had been "going" ever
since she left school, and she was generally considered in Thorhaven to
have brown eyes.

After some time she withdrew that eager gaze, swerved round as if on a
pivot, and started at a tremendous pace up the short, windy street that
led to the main road. "I'll do it!" she said to herself--young lips
tightly pressed, and nails biting into her palms even through her
gloves. "I don't care what aunt says. It's my life, not hers. It's
nobody's business but my own."

At the corner she stood a moment, searching the long grey road that led
to the church. After a while she saw a cart in the distance laden with
parcels and boxes, and she began to run after it, calling as she went:
"Hi! Mr. Willis! Mr. Willis! Please stop! I want my box back. I
don't want it taken to Miss Wilson's."

Mr. Willis pulled up and looked back over his shoulder. He had a
weather-beaten, humorous face and was very slow in his habit of speech.
"Quarrelled with Miss Ethel before you get there?" he said. "That's a
bit quicker work than usual. Servant lasses generally let me get their
boxes over the doorstep before they want to come away, even nowadays."

"Well, I don't mean to live servant with anybody," said Caroline,
frowning. "I've changed my mind all of a sudden because I only heard
of another opening this morning. I never wanted to go to the Cottage;
it was all Aunt Creddle. She always promised I should, when I got to
be nineteen, and I didn't seem as if I could get out of it."

"Well!" He jerked the reins. "Appears to me you might have spread
some of your thinking over the last four years instead of doing it all
since breakfast this morning." And he added over his shoulder: "I'm to
leave your box at Mrs. Creddle's, as I come back, then?"