Of all the callous, cold-blooded--! Darsie turned with a swing and marched forward into the bleak little cell which had the audacity to call itself a first-class waiting-room, seated herself on a leather- covered bench which seemed just the most inhospitable thing in the way of furniture which the mind of man could conceive, and gave herself up to thought. Never, never so long as she lived would she ever again leave home without some money in her pocket! How in the name of all that was mysterious could she contrive to possess herself of eightpence within the next hour? "Our old woman" would lend it with pleasure, but Darsie shrank from the idea of the darkening country road with the dread of the town-dweller who in imagination sees a tramp lurking behind every bush. No, this first and most obvious suggestion must be put on one side, and even if she could have humbled herself to beg from the porter, Darsie felt an absolute conviction that he would refuse. At the farther side of the station there stretched a small straggling village. Surely somehow in that village--! With a sudden inspiration Darsie leaped to her feet and approached the porter once more. Into her mind had darted the remembrance of the manner in which poor people in books possessed themselves of money in critical moments of their history. "Porter, will you please tell me the way to the nearest pawnshop?" "P-p--!" Now, indeed, if she had wished to rouse the porter to animation, she had succeeded beyond her wildest dreams! He spun round, and gaped at her with a stupefaction of surprise. "Pawnshop, did ye say? P-awn! What do _you_ want with a pawnshop, a slip of a girl like you?" "That's my business!" returned Darsie loftily. Since he had been so unsympathetic and rude, she was certainly not going to satisfy his curiosity. Her dear little watch would provide her with money, and somehow--she didn't understand why--pawnbrokers gave things back after paying for them, in the most amiable and engaging of fashions. "That's my business! If you would kindly direct me--" "We haven't got no pawnshop," said the porter gruffly. He stared at her slowly up and down, down and up, appeared to awake to a suspicious interest, and opined gruffly, "You'd better go 'ome!" "Just what I'm trying to do," sighed poor Darsie to herself. She turned and went slowly back to her leather seat, and a second disconsolate review of the situation. In time to come this experience would rank as an adventure, and became an oft-told tale. She would chill her listeners with hints of The Tramp, evoke shrieks of laughter at her imitation of the porter. Darsie realised the fact, but for the moment it left her cold. Summer evenings have a trick of turning chill and damp after the sun is set, and the vault-like waiting-room was dreary enough to damp the highest spirits. _How was she going to obtain that eightpence for a ticket_?