sed you this inconvenience," said Margaret.
"But it was most kind of you to come and meet me."

"Oh, I didn't come down to meet you," said Maud, with perfect frankness.
"I wanted to hear how Anna had got on at Surbiton. Then I luckily
remembered that you were coming by this train, and so got a lift home
in your cab, and killed two birds with one stone."

The little laugh with which Maud accompanied this candid explanation of
her presence at the station robbed her words of much of their sting, yet
Margaret was conscious of a feeling of mortification that Maud's errand
had not been undertaken solely on her behalf. Indeed, she had been given
to understand that she was by far the smaller and the least important of
the two bird's that Maud's stone had brought down; and the knowledge made
her feel very forlorn indeed. Up to that moment she had been under the
impression that Maud had been anxious to meet her and make her
acquaintance. Well, if not hers, that of the girl she represented, and
the casually given information that it was only because she happened to
travel by the same train as the Finches that she had been at the station
to greet her quite took away the pleasant feeling she had had that there
was at least one person in the big, strange household she was entering
who was eager to show herself kindly disposed towards the new holiday
governess.

They had long ago left the neighbourhood of the town behind them, and
had been driving through the deepening dusk towards the downs, which,
looking in that dim light like a high green wall, run inland from the
sea. Most of the roads hereabouts were wide and bordered by trees, and
on either side houses which had for the most part large gardens
surrounding them lay back from the road. Even Margaret, unversed as she
was in the knowledge of what made the difference between a good and bad
neighbourhood in the town, could perceive that the further they went the
more prosperous and consequential looking the houses became.

At last, when they were almost underneath the downs, the long, straight
road they had been following for some time turned abruptly to the right,
and going through a white gate they entered a long drive lined on either
side with a hedge of evergreens close clipped and of great thickness.
Here and there openings like doorways had been cut in the hedge, but it
was now too dark to see what lay beyond them.

Almost before the cab had time to draw up before the light