get very crushed," she muttered discontentedly. "But then----
Oh, well, I might as well put it in," and in it went. Mrs. Britton
hovered anxiously about her, and watched her proceedings wistfully.

"You don't think I should go too, do you, Anne?" she asked.

"Not at present, certainly," Miss Britton returned promptly, regarding
her with her head on one side. "I promise I will let you know exactly
how things are, and whether you would be better there. I would say
'Don't worry' if I thought it were the least good, but, of course, you
will."

Then she stooped and fastened a strap of her trunk. "It was a most
sensible thing of the young Morton to write straight away, and,
probably, if they are there, they will be quite sure to see Barbara has
all she wants--the uncle always was a kind-hearted man."

Then she straightened her back and declared everything was ready.

She crossed by night from Southampton to St. Malo, and was greatly
afraid that she would arrive "looking a wreck," and, to prevent that
she partook largely of a medicine she had seen advertised as a "certain
cure for sea-sickness." Her surprise equalled her delight when she
awoke in the morning, having slept peacefully all night, and she
refused to believe that her good night was probably owing to the
calmness of the sea and not to the medicine.

She looked with a little dismay at the shouting, pushing crowd of
porters and hotel touts waiting on the quay, wondering how she would
manage to keep hold of her bag among them all, and, as she crossed the
gangway, clutched it more tightly than before.

"No," she said, as some one took hold of it as soon as her foot touched
the quay. "You shall not take my bag--I would not trust it to any one
of you. You should be ashamed of yourselves, screaming like wild
Indians."

It was just then that Denys Morton and his uncle came through the
crowd. "That is she--there," the elder man said, recognising her after
fourteen years. "Go and help; I will wait here."

It was at a crucial moment, when Miss Britton was really getting
exasperated and rather desperate, that the young man came up, and she
accepted his assistance and explanation with relief.

"My uncle is down here," he said. "We have a _fiacre_ waiting. There
is always such a crush and rout on the quay, we thought we had better
come to pilot you through."

The young man, in spite of his easy bearing, had been a little anxious
as to how the two would me