bright, audacious girl of that past time was set strongly before her. It
is probably as rare for any one really to wish to be the self of any
former time--to wish to be younger--as it is really to wish to be any
one else. Sophia certainly did not dream of wishing to be younger. We
are seldom just to ourselves--either past or present: Sophia had a fine
scorn for what she remembered herself to have been; she had greater
respect for her present self, because there was less of outward show,
and more of reality.

It might have been a quarter of an hour, it might have been more, since
the train had last started, but now it stopped rather suddenly. Sophia's
father murmured sleepily against the proximity of the stations. He was
reclining in the seat just behind her.

Sophia looked out of her window. She saw no light. By-and-by some men
came up the side of the track with lanterns. She saw by the light they
held that they were officials of the train, and that the bank on which
they walked looked perfectly wild and untrodden. She turned her head
toward her father.

"We are not at any station," she remarked.

"Ay!" He got up with cumbrous haste, as a horse might rise. He, too,
looked out of the window, then round at his women and children, and clad
himself in an immense coat.

"I'll just go out," he whispered, "and see how things are. If there's
anything wrong I'll let you know."

He intended his whisper to be something akin to silence; he intended to