distress, but to Paul the radiance of her person almost rivalled the
wonder of her perfume. It was his first meeting of a goddess face to
face, and he surrendered his whole being in adoration.

In a few minutes the children were marched through the squalid
streets, a strident band, to the dingy railway station, a grimy
proletariat third-class railway station in which the sign "First
Class Waiting Room" glared an outrage and a mockery, and were
marshalled into the waiting train. The wonderful experience of which
Paul had dreamed for weeks--he had never ridden in a train
before--began; and soon the murky environs of the town were left
behind and the train sped through the open country.

His companions in the railway carriage crowded at the windows,
fighting vigorously for right of place; but Paul sat alone in the
middle of the seat, unmoved by the new sensation and speed, and by
the glimpses of blue sky and waving trees above the others' heads.
The glory of the day was blotted out until he should see and smell
the goddess again. At the wayside station where they descended he
saw her in the distance, and the glory came once more. She caught
his eye, smiled and nodded. He felt a queer thrill run through him.
He had been singled out from among all the boys. He alone knew her.

Brakes took them from the station down a country road and, after a
mile or so, through stone gates of a stately park, where wonder
after wonder was set out before Paul's unaccustomed eyes. On either
side of this roadway stretched rolling grass with clumps and glades
of great trees in their July bravery--more trees than Paul
imagined could be in the world. There were sunlit upland patches and
cool dells of shade carpeted with golden buttercups, where cattle