ed up the road leading to Laura Temple's,
and Caroline remained unaware that he had been anywhere near.

She had a long run before the carrier heard her calling: then he pulled
up his old white horse and waited at the top of the little hill, the
air about them seeming almost iridescent with the gold and red of the
autumn sunset shining through it.

"Here you are again, then," he said as she came up. "Where do you want
your box moved to this time? You see, you stopped on at the Cottage,
after all."

"I'm not going yet--not for another fortnight." She was panting
slightly, a little out of breath. "I want you to take a typewriter for
me to Mr. Wilson's lodgings. It's one he left at the Cottage for me to
practise on."

"All right. I'll call round to-morrow," he replied.

"Oh! I do wish you could come to-night," she said. "I particularly
want it to go back to-night."

The carrier laughed good-naturedly, looking down at her. "Oh, that's
it, is it?" he said. "Well, you're in the right on it. One lass is
enough for any man. Gee-up." And he shouted back as he went: "I'll
call round in an hour or so."

Caroline stood still in the road as he jolted round out of sight,
forgetting to move, her bodily sensations all swamped by the tumult of
her mind. How dare he say such a thing! she said to herself; then she
burst forth, aloud: "I aren't going to have it. I _aren't_ going to
have it!"

But behind all that, she felt the iron touch of reality. Life was not
to be as she wanted it, just because she was herself--as she had felt
in the past. No matter how she might rebel, she'd _got_ to "have it."
The people in Thorhaven must pity her or laugh at her as they liked:
she could not prevent them from destroying the steps she had hewn with
such careful pains on the side of that steep hill which led to
everything she desired. With all her fun and easy friendliness she had
always kept herself a little "nice"--a little carefully
unsmirched--holding her head up among the other girls---- And now they
had the laugh of her. Now, she thought--standing there, digging her
finger-nails into her palms--now they'd giggle and talk about her as
they did about all those others who had been made fools of and left in
the lurch. And she could not get away from it all. Despite her fine
talk about never entering Uncle Creddle's house again, she had found
that it would be literally impossible to live in Flodmouth on what she
earned