"I don't know," was Bobbie's unexpected answer. "I don't know how
I feel. It isn't that I'm lazy. Mother, will you let me off lessons
to-day? I feel as if I wanted to be quite alone by myself."

"Yes, of course I'll let you off," said Mother; "but--"

Bobbie dropped her slate. It cracked just across the little green mark
that is so useful for drawing patterns round, and it was never the same
slate again. Without waiting to pick it up she bolted. Mother caught her
in the hall feeling blindly among the waterproofs and umbrellas for her
garden hat.

"What is it, my sweetheart?" said Mother. "You don't feel ill, do you?"

"I DON'T know," Bobbie answered, a little breathlessly, "but I want to
be by myself and see if my head really IS all silly and my inside all
squirmy-twisty."

"Hadn't you better lie down?" Mother said, stroking her hair back from
her forehead.

"I'd be more alive in the garden, I think," said Bobbie.

But she could not stay in the garden. The hollyhocks and the asters and
the late roses all seemed to be waiting for something to happen. It was
one of those still, shiny autumn days, when everything does seem to be
waiting.

Bobbie could not wait.

"I'll go down to the station," she said, "and talk to Perks and ask
about the signalman's little boy."

So she went down. On the way she passed the old lady from the
Post-office, who gave her a kiss and a hug, but, rather to Bobbie's
surprise, no words except:--

"God bless you, love--" and, after a pause, "run along--do."

The draper's boy, who had sometimes been a little less than civil and
a little more than contemptuous, now touched his cap, and uttered the
remarkable words:--

"'Morning, Miss, I'm sure--"

The blacksmith, coming along with an open newspaper in his hand, was
even more strange in his manner. He grinned broadly, though, as a rule,
he was a man not given to smiles, and waved the newspaper long before
he came up to her. And as he passed her, he said, in answer to her "Good
morning":--

"Good morning to you, Missie, and many of them! I wish you joy, that I
do!"

"Oh!" said Bobbie to herself, and her heart quickened its beats,
"something IS going to happen! I know it is--everyone is so odd, like
people are in dreams."

The Station Master wrung her hand warmly. In fact he worked it up and
down like a pump-handle. But he gave her no reason for this unusually
enthusiastic greeting. He only said:--

"The 11.54's a bit late, Mi