called her Bobbie, and I don't see why I
shouldn't.)

"I don't know; it's different," said Peter. "It seems so odd to see ALL
of a train. It's awfully tall, isn't it?"

"We've always seen them cut in half by platforms," said Phyllis.

"I wonder if that train was going to London," Bobbie said. "London's
where Father is."

"Let's go down to the station and find out," said Peter.

So they went.

They walked along the edge of the line, and heard the telegraph wires
humming over their heads. When you are in the train, it seems such a
little way between post and post, and one after another the posts seem
to catch up the wires almost more quickly than you can count them. But
when you have to walk, the posts seem few and far between.

But the children got to the station at last.

Never before had any of them been at a station, except for the purpose
of catching trains--or perhaps waiting for them--and always with
grown-ups in attendance, grown-ups who were not themselves interested in
stations, except as places from which they wished to get away.

Never before had they passed close enough to a signal-box to be able to
notice the wires, and to hear the mysterious 'ping, ping,' followed by
the strong, firm clicking of machinery.

The very sleepers on which the rails lay were a delightful path to
travel by--just far enough apart to serve as the stepping-stones in a
game of foaming torrents hastily organised by Bobbie.

Then to arrive at the station, not through the booking office, but in
a freebooting sort of way by the sloping end of the platform. This in
itself was joy.

Joy, too, it was to peep into the porters' room, where the lamps are,
and the Railway almanac on the wall, and one porter half asleep behind a
paper.

There were a great many crossing lines at the station; some of them just
ran into a yard and stopped short, as though they were tired of business
and meant to retire for good. Trucks stood on the rails here, and on one
side was a great heap of coal--not a loose heap, such as you see in your
coal cellar, but a sort of solid building of coals with large square
blocks of coal outside used just as though they were bricks, and built
up till the heap looked like the picture of the Cities of the Plain in
'Bible Stories for Infants.' There was a line of whitewash near the top
of the coaly wall.

When presently the Porter lounged out of his room at the twice-repeated
tingling thrill of a gong over the sta