CHAPTER I.

MRS. BLAKE.


The cars were not over-crowded, and were moving leisurely along in the
soft, midsummer twilight. At first, I had felt a trifle annoyed at my
carelessness in missing the Express by which I had been expected; but now
I quite enjoyed going in this mixed train, since I could the better
observe the country than in the swifter Express. As I drew near the end
of my journey, my pulses began to quicken with nervousness, not unmixed
with dread.

Captain Green, under whose care I had been placed when I left my home for
the last eight years, had concluded, no doubt very wisely, that I could
travel the remaining few miles through quiet county places alone. This
last one hundred and fifty miles, however, had been the most trying part
of the whole journey. My English was a trifle halting; all our teachers
spoke German as their mother tongue at the school, and the last two years
I was the only English-born pupil. Captain Green was an old East Indian
officer, like my own dead father, and very readily undertook the care of
a troublesome chit of a girl across the ocean, in memory of the strong
friendship subsisting between himself and my father, now long since
passed to other service than that of Her Gracious Majesty. The Captain
was a very silent man, and therefore not calculated to help me to a
better acquaintance of any language, while he did not encourage me to
make friends with my traveling companions. The journey had been therefore
a very quiet one to me, but I had found it delightful. I had, like most