I kept my eyes fixed on the Seminary as long as it remained in view,
especially on the little corner room. It seemed to me that I must be a
very wicked girl indeed, because I felt no real sorrow at quitting the
place that had been my home for so many years. I could not feel anything
but secretly glad, but furtively happy with a happiness which I felt
ashamed of acknowledging even to myself. Miss Chinfeather's white and
solemn face, as seen in her coffin, haunted my memory, but even of her I
thought only with a sort of chastened regret. She had never touched my
heart. There had been about her a bleakness of nature that effectually
chilled any tender buds of liking or affection that might in the
ordinary course of events have grown up and blossomed round her life.
Therefore, in my child's heart there was no lasting sorrow for her
death, no gracious memories of her that would stay with me, and smell
sweet, long after she herself should be dust.

My eight miles' ride by coach was soon over. It ended at the railway
station of the county town. The guard of the coach had, I suppose,
received his secret instructions. Almost before I knew what had
happened, I found myself in a first-class carriage, with a ticket for
Eastbury in my hand, and committed to the care of another guard, he of
the railway this time--a fiery-faced man, with immense red whiskers, who
came and surveyed me as though I were some contraband article, but
finished by nodding his head and saying with a smile, "I dessay we shall
be good friends, miss, before we get to the end of our journey."

It was my first journey by rail, and the novelty of it filled me with
wonder and delight. The train by which I travelled was a fast one, and
after my first feeling of fright at the rapidity of the motion had
merged into one of intense pleasure and exhilaration of mind, I could
afford to look back on my recent coach experience with a sort of pitying