sorry to say, Miss, you will have to wait here for two hours
and a half," said the guard, as he helped the young lady who had been
given into his charge to alight. "I will carry your bag for you to the
waiting-room. It's a slow one, too, the next train, and don't get into
Seabourne until 7.10, whereas the express you have just missed would have
got you there at 3.45."

"I do not mind at all, thank you," said Margaret blithely, as she walked
down the platform beside him with light steps. "I really think it's great
fun missing a train, and having to wait for the next."

"Then, Miss, you're the first passenger I ever met who looked at it in
that way," said the guard in some astonishment. "Well, I must be going
on, for, as we're late already, we don't stop any time here. Good
morning, Miss, sorry I couldn't have done more for you, and put you in
charge of the next guard, as the gentleman asked. But you will be all
right in the waiting-room. Your train leaves at 2.17."

"Thank you," said Margaret. "I will not forget. Good morning."

She was delighted to see him go, and when the train steamed out of the
station, which it did a few minutes later, a sense of freedom, as novel
as it was delightful, took possession of her. For a few hours, at least,
she was absolutely her own mistress. There was no one to tell her to do
this, when she would rather have done the other, no one even to tell her
to remain where she was if she wished to go for a walk. And to go for a
walk was just what she intended to do. She certainly did not intend to
spend the next two hours in this stuffy little waiting-room, whose one
window commanded a view of nothing more exciting than the station yard.
She would go into the town and look at the shops.

It was true that the sky seemed rather overcast, but the clouds were
probably only passing ones, and the sun would shine out again in a few
minutes. Turning abruptly from the window she was hurrying towards the
door, when a voice close beside her remarked that she was leaving her bag
behind. Swinging round in amazement, for she had thought that she was
alone, she perceived that the room now contained another occupant who
must have entered it while she was staring out of the window. A girl of
about her own age was seated at the table with a couple of books and an
exercise book spread out before her, and as Margaret looked at her she
just pointed with her pencil at the dressing bag which the guard had
placed