that will make us feel happy," she said,
wistfully, with just the faintest quiver of her baby lip. "Something that
will make me not think about mummy and Lydia and home."

"Pen, you tell us one, will you?" said Esther, lifting her little sister
on to her lap, and holding her very close. "You can tell stories better
than I can."

Angela in her corner kept her back turned to them, looking out of window
very persistently, and winking very hard. But when the story was fairly
begun she too crept up and nestled close to Esther, with her face well
hidden behind Poppy's back and Esther's encircling arm.

The request roused Penelope from her own depression. She loved to tell
stories. Usually she made up her own, for she had read but few to repeat;
and the children always preferred hers, for, somehow, she seemed to know
exactly what they liked. Now it seemed as though she understood perfectly
just what would cheer them, and what to avoid, and they listened in
perfect silence, drinking in comfort.

"Don't stop, don't stop!" pleaded Poppy, when the obvious end had been
reached. But at that moment the train drew up, and Esther's eyes,
wandering idly over the little station to see what place they had reached,
read 'Dorsham' on the signboard, and sprang to her feet with such energy
as to send Angela and Poppy tottering across the carriage.

"We are come," she gasped. "Oh girls, we are come! What shall we do?"

"Dorsham, Do-orsham," shouted a porter outside, in confirmation of her
words, and the carriage immediately became a scene of wild confusion and
excitement.

"I wonder if there is any one here to meet us," said Esther, as she tidied
Poppy's dark hair and put on her hat. "Perhaps some of us had better get
out and see, or they'll think we have not come."

They were all almost breathless with nervous excitement, and Esther was
just popping her head out of the window to try to open the carriage door
when a little lady came hurrying along the platform, her cheeks very pink,
her eyes bright with anxiety. When she saw Esther she stopped, her face
brightening with an expectant smile. When her eye fell on the three other
little faces gazing out through the side windows with eager curiosity, her
face brightened still more.

"Oh," she gasped, "are you--I think you must be the little Carrolls from
Framley, my young cousins. I am Miss Charlotte Ashe, Cousin Charlotte--
and I've come to meet you--are you Esther? I think