of the faggots and
climbed up on the engine, and off they started. And _what_ a journey it
was! All about them stretched the country, vast and still and empty,
they themselves, seemingly, the only living creatures in it, the panting
and rumbling of the engine the only sound to be heard, for it drowned
all such gentle sounds as the "good-nights" of the birds, the distant
lowing of cows, the rippling of the brook beside the way.

Daylight was fading fast. Here and there the way was narrow, and the
hedges so high that the hawthorns almost met overhead; and here and
there, where tall fir trees lined the road on either side, it was very
nearly dark.

By two of them, at least, that journey in the fading light was never
forgotten. It had been such a happy day, so free from worries and
naughtiness or squabbles, or any cause for regret; and now they were
going home, happy but tired, and longing to be in the dear old untidy,
shabby home again. Kitty, with Tony nestling against her, leaned back
in her corner restfully, and thought of her home with a depth of feeling
she could not have defined. "If it could only be like this always," she
said to herself, "and there is no reason why it shouldn't if only we
were good and every one was nice. I wonder, I wonder if I cannot make
it so that father wouldn't want any one to live with us."

On they rattled and jolted, past the two cottages, with their windows
lighted up now and the blinds drawn; past the little well, its cave
looking dark and mysterious under its green canopy. Kitty, lost to the
others and their talk, gazed with loving eyes at everything.
"Dear little well," she thought. "Dear old 'Rover,' and Gorlay, and
home, how I do love every inch and stick and stone of it! I think I
should die if I had to leave--"

"Kitty, _have you got_ a shilling?" Dan shrieked in her ear with such
vigour that Kitty really leaped in her seat.

"What _is_ the matter?" she demanded crossly. It was not pleasant to be
roused from her musings and brought back thus to everyday, prosaic
matters; and it happened to her so often, or so it seemed.

"I have asked you three times already. Have you got a shilling?
We shall have to get down presently, or we shall be seen, and the men
and all of us will get into a row because we are travelling without
tickets. We had better get down when they come to the 'lotment gardens,
and we must tip them; but Betty has only got tuppence, and I have only
fo