"Learned ladies? Well, yes, perhaps--as a means to an end. You may think it strange, as others have thought; but this woman really believed His word who said, `Ye are not your own. Ye are bought with a price.' `None of us liveth to himself.'" "In a way, we all believe them, I suppose." "Yes, in a way. Well, she believed them in another way. She believed them and lived them all her life long. Learned ladies! Yes; but the keynote of all her teaching was this: `Not your own, but His who bought you. His for service or for suffering, for watching or warfare, for life or death.'" "Well?" said his friend, as the speaker paused. "Well, she is dead, and `her works do follow her.'" There was no time for more. The train stopped, and several of the "schoolgirls" rose to leave. The travellers heard one "Good-bye" spoken. "Oh, if you would come with me even yet, dear Faithful!" "Another time I hope to go with you; but not this time." "Well, good-bye, my Faithful, good-bye. No, I am not going to cry, but I _will_ kiss you, whatever any one may think about it." And then the speaker was gone. No one saw her companion's face for some time after that. Nor did she see the receding mountains on which she seemed to be gazing. Her eyes were dim with tears which must not be allowed to fall. "Fidelia Marsh," said her companion at last, "what are you thinking about? Not little Nellie Austin all this time, surely?" The young girl turned round. "I was trying to think how it would seem if I were never to see her or any of you all again;" and then she turned her face to the window, and sat silent till her turn had come to say "Good-bye." "Yes, this is my stopping-place." She smiled and nodded to those who were not within reach of her hand, and seemed to be cheerful enough in her good-bye, but she did not linger near the window when she reached the platform, as Nellie Austin and her friend had done. It was a dreary little station, standing at the foot of a broken stony slope, with only one unfurnished house in sight. One lank official moved about at his leisure, and one embryo trader hastened to display his boxes of lozenges, and his basket of unwholesome peanuts and last year's apples. There were doubtless prosperous villages along the wide road that crossed the railway, and pleasant farmhouses amid the high pastures and moist meadow lands hid away among the hills beyond; but the dingy house and the dull little station were all that could be seen from the windows of the cars, and Fidelia's companions said to one another that the place looked forlorn. "And poor dear Fidelia! Does she not look forlorn as well?"