Audrey was not thinking of her hair, but of her tear-disfigured face, until, in half turning round from the window, she caught sight of herself in the strip of mirror, and of two large smuts ornamenting her brow and her nose! After that she thought of them, and of how ridiculous she must look, and she glanced quickly with shamed eyes at her companions. They were looking at her, but there was not the ghost of a laugh on either of their faces; indeed, on one there was gentle concern. "That cinder is so close to your eye; may I flick it off for you?" asked the taller of the two girls, springing to her feet. "If you had tried to do it yourself you might have sent it into your eye," she explained, when she had done, "and then sometimes they take hours to get out again." "Thank you very much," said Audrey, gratefully, then suddenly grew so shy that she subsided into her corner without another word. She made a big effort, though, to recover; it seemed so ungracious, so rude, to receive a kindness in so _gauche_ a fashion. She took up some of her magazines. "Would you--would you like to look at these?" she asked, holding them out towards the elder girl, and at the same time colouring with embarrassment and with pleasure. "Oh, thank you!" the three spoke with one voice. "We would love to, but-- have you done with them all for the time?" asked Irene, the elder girl. "Wouldn't you like one for yourself? Daphne and I could look at one together." Audrey shook her head. "No, thank you. I have looked through them, and I have a book here if I want to read." "Perhaps you would take some lunch with us instead?" suggested the mother, looking up from her paper with a smile. "Keith, before you begin to devour _The Boys' Own_, lift up the lunch-basket for me, and I will unpack it. We don't stop again for some time, so we can feel sure of not being disturbed." Audrey was really not hungry, but more for the pleasure of joining the happy party than because she wanted anything, she accepted the kind offer, and was always afterwards thankful that she did, for it was the jolliest, pleasantest meal she had ever had in her life. Almost before it was begun all stiffness and shyness had vanished, and if Audrey had ever resented her travelling companions coming, she had quite forgotten it. "I shall be sorry when the journey is over," she said with a sigh, as she lay back weary with laughter. "I never had such a jolly one!" "Have you far to go?" "Not so very, very much farther," she said, half ruefully. "I am going to Moor End, but I have to get out at Kingfield, and change." "Oh, how funny! We get out at Kingfield too, but we are going on to Abbot's Field. That is the same line as yours, isn't it?" "Yes, Abbot's Field is a station further on."