"
"Then I can only say good-bye. That tiresome engine is snorting with a
fiendish impatience to bear me away. Good-bye, Miss Lovel, and a thousand
thanks for the companionship that has made this journey so pleasant to me."
He lifted his hat and went back to the carriage, as the stout gentleman
approached Clarissa. He would fain have shaken hands with her, but
refrained from that unjustifiable familiarity. And so, in the bleak early
autumnal dawn, they parted.
* * * * *
CHAPTER II.
BEGINNING THE WORLD.
"Who on earth was that man you were talking to, Clary?" asked the Reverend
Mathew Oliver, when he had seen his niece's luggage carried off to a fly,
and was conducting her to that vehicle. "Is it any one you know?"
"O, no, uncle; only a gentleman who travelled in the same carriage with me
from London. He was very kind."
"You seemed unaccountably familiar with him," said Mr. Oliver with an
aggrieved air; "you ought to be more reserved, my dear, at your age. A
young lady travelling alone cannot be too careful. Indeed, it was very
wrong of your father to allow you to make this long journey alone. Your
aunt has been quite distressed about it."
Clarissa sighed faintly; but was not deeply concerned by the idea of her
aunt's distress. Distress of mind, on account of some outrage of propriety
on the part of her relatives, was indeed almost the normal condition of
that lady.
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