The time was rather after five o’clock on a dark afternoon a week later.
The train lamps had been lit two hours ago, and cast a vivid, unshaded light upon a comfortable first-class railway carriage, with its well-stuffed seats, well-covered floors, and tasselled blinds shutting out the winter darkness.
Even particular Mr. Fenton thought the light good enough to read by, and was leaning back luxuriously² in his corner of the carriage, immersed in the Westminster Gazette.
But Sydney, who sat opposite him, could not read. A pile of magazines considered by Mr. Fenton to suit her age and sex lay around her, and she was idly turning up the pages of one on her knee. But her eyes were fixed³ dreamily upon the wall before her, and her thoughts were leagues away from the swiftly-moving train, which was carrying her ever nearer and nearer to the new, strange life.
[28]
It did not seem possible that she could be the same Sydney who, only a week ago, had been so wildly happy over the letter from the Editor of Our Girls. Why, though six copies of the paper with her story in it had arrived for her, “With the compliments of the Editor,” that morning, she had not even looked at them. No one had cared: all that happiness and excitement had been years and years ago!
And yet had ever a week gone so quickly?
The days seemed all too short for everything she wanted to do in them. In the end she had done little except follow mother round the house, from kitchen to larder⁴, from larder to store-room, and from store-room to linen-cupboard. The idea of going round to say good-bye to all her friends had to be given up; after all, it was mother that she wanted most.
At night she and Dolly, who shared a room, used to hold to each other and cry; but in the daytime Sydney shed few tears. She was very quiet and wistful-eyed, but trustful of father’s judgment⁵, only growing a little more silent as the days went on.
There came a letter from Lady Frederica Verney, Lord St. Quentin’s aunt, beginning, “Dear Miss Lisle,” which opening was in itself
[29]
 a shock, and asking Sydney if she would be ready to come to Castle St. Quentin on Tuesday next, under the escort of Mr. Fenton. A maid, whom Lady Frederica had engaged to wait upon her, would come up to town the day before, spend the night at an hotel, and meet Sydney at Waterloo in time for the two o’clock train down to Blankshire.

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