with her before; but, even with an hour or more to spare, there arises
a question whether under such circumstances the train can be saved. But
the grey old man reassured her. 'Now, miss,' said he, coming to the
window, while he left his horse recumbent and apparently comfortable on
the road, 'where'd you have been now, zure, if I hadn't a few minutes
in hand for you?' Then he walked off to some neighbouring cottage, and
having obtained assistance, succeeded in putting his beast again upon
his legs. After that he looked once more in at the window. 'Who's right
now, I wonder?' he said, with an air of triumph. And when he came to
her for his guerdon at Taunton, he was evidently cross in not having it
increased because of the accident.

That hour at the Taunton station was terrible to her. I know of no
hours more terrible than those so passed. The minutes will not go away,
and utterly fail in making good their claim to be called winged. A man
walks up and down the platform, and in that way obtains something of
the advantage of exercise; but a woman finds herself bound to sit still
within the dreary dullness of the waiting- room. There are, perhaps,
people who under such circumstances can read, but they are few in
number. The mind altogether declines to be active, whereas the body is
seized by a spirit of restlessness to which delay and tranquillity are
loathsome. The advertisements on the walls are examined, the map of
some new Eden is studied some Eden in which an irregular pond and a
church are surrounded by a multiplicity of regular villas and shrubs
till the student feels that no consideration of health or economy would
induce him to live there. Then the porters come in and out, till each
porter has made himself odious to the sight. Everything is hideous,
dirty, and disagreeable; and the mind wanders away, to consider why
station-masters do not more frequently commit suicide. Clara Amedroz
had already got beyond this stage, and was beginning to think of