night, and--oh, I hope she kept away from the river!
If anything chased her, and she ran, and in the darkness fell in--
O Betty, Betty!"

Then "Gorlay at last!" she cried in intense relief as she recognized the
well-known landmarks. Long before the train could possibly draw up, she
got up and stood by the door with the handle in her hand, a sense of
strangeness, of unreality, growing upon her. She felt as though she
were some one else, some one older and more experienced, who was
accustomed to moving amidst tragedies and the serious events of life.
Even the old familiar platform, the white palings, the 'bus and the
drowsy horses that she knew so well, seemed to her to have changed too,
and to wear quite a different aspect.

"I feel like a person just waking out of a dream, not knowing whether it
is dream or reality," she thought to herself as she opened the door and
stepped out on to the platform. "I suppose I am not dreaming?"

But as she stood there for a moment trying to collect herself, Weller,
the 'busman, came up to her, and he was real enough, and his anxious
face was no dream-face.

"Good-morning, missie," he said sympathetically. "I'm sorry enough, I'm
sure, to see you come home on such an errant. 'Tis wisht, sure enough."

Kitty was startled. She thought he was referring to Betty, and wondered
how he could know of her escapade. "You knew she was gone?" she asked
anxiously.

The man looked shocked. "Gone! Is she, poor lady? Law now, miss, you
don't say so! I hadn't heard it. She was just conscious when I called
fore this morning to inquire, and they 'ad 'opes that she'd rally."

"Then they have found her; but--but is she ill? Did she get hurt?--the
river!--O Weller, do tell me quickly. I came home on purpose to go to
look for her. Is she very ill?" Poor Kitty was nearly exhausted with
anxiety and the shocks she had received.

Weller looked puzzled. "Why," he said slowly, "I never heard nothing
about any river. She was took ill and fell down in the room, missie.
Haven't you heard? They told me they was going to tellygraff for you so
soon as the office was open, 'cause your poor aunt said your name once
or twice--almost the only words they've been able to make out since she
was took ill; and with the master away and you the eldest, they thought
you ought to be sent for."

Then the rest of Betty's letter came back to her mind, and as the
importance of it was borne in on her, Kitty's h