It might have been about half-past twelve when she awoke with a start and sprang to her feet. She was trembling now like the leaves of the aspen, for she could hear voices muttering outside the back door, and some one tried the handle. Most girls would have screamed. Lotty did not; she drew nearer to the door, and listened. 'This is the caravan, Lintie, a nobleman's, they say. Let's try those keys. I'll break the lock afore I'm beaten. Plenty o' swag in here, Lintie, and nobody'll know the crib has ever been cracked.' Key after key was tried in vain, and poor Lotty was nearly fainting. 'Here, Lintie, the jemmy; hand it up. I'm going in whatever happens.' There was glass in the back door; and, hardly knowing what she did, Lotty flashed her electric light through that, full in the hideous, grimy face of the would-be burglar. She stamped her feet at the same time, and rattled the door-handle. The next moment, with something like an oath and a smothered shout, the burglars made off. But Lotty slept no more till daylight, and when she awoke the train was far on its way to the Border. It was moving very quickly too; she knew that from the motion. But, oh! how she hoped and prayed the train would go right on now to London, for she determined she would leave it anywhere rather than be shunted into the dark of a siding again. But, much to her joy, the train went rattling on and on, so after breakfast and some more of Chops's chocolates she forgot all her troubles, even opened the front door and went out to sit in the coachman's seat and gaze on the beautiful landscape gliding swiftly past her like some splendid panorama. The sun was shining brightly to-day, the sky everywhere clear and blue, with only a few white clouds on the western horizon. It was the sunshine of earliest summer, a sunshine of promise, a sunshine, too, that seemed to find an echo in this little gipsy's heart. Even the train's rapid motion accorded with the girl's feelings, making her feel that she was leaving something of sorrow and darkness behind her and bringing her every hour nearer and nearer to a happier future. Yet Lotty could not help thinking, while she sat here in the bright forenoon sunshine, how sad it was that so much of real joy should have been in her camp-life mingled with the embittering gall of misery. For, as far as her relations with Biffins Lee had existed, her life had been one long woe. She bore him no ill-will, however; he had been a hard taskmaster, and she merely a little white slave, useful to him in his business, a mere property, that was all. What her life as a show-girl would have been without Crona, Chops, and Mary she could not have told you. 'Oh,' she would have said, 'it would have been no life, for I would simply have died.'