“She will think, or rather she will see, that the telegram comes from Mr. Randolph Hay, and that will be enough,” replied Mr. Walling. “When the other fellow comes on the fifteenth with his friends and finds us in possession——Well! I can’t help anticipating a rink, a circus, a hippodrome, a spectacular drama, an earthquake, a conflagration and the day of judgment all rolled into one!” said Randolph, with a laugh. “And there will be nothing of the sort. Only at most a panic and a total rout. Come, we must take our seats,” exclaimed Will Walling, as he led the way to the waiting train, where a guide showed them into the middle compartment of a first-class carriage. Mike, Dandy and Longman had taken tickets for the second class. “Now is it not too bad that Ran cannot get our friends in here with us, Mr. Walling?” demanded Judy, as she settled herself in the luxurious corner front seat of their compartment and noticed that there were just six seats. “My dear Judy,” muttered Ran, “your brother and his companions are able to take these three vacant seats with us if they please, but for prudential and very praiseworthy reasons they choose to economize and take the second class. I could not offer them a worse offense than invite them to take these seats at my expense.” “Well, I do think there is a great deal of false pride in the world,” Judy pouted. “So there is, darling; but we cannot cure it.” “It is a wonder their high mightinesses consent to go with you to Haymore and be your guests there.” “That is a different affair.” “I don’t see that it is.” “But they do,” laughed Ran. The train started, and the conversation dropped. It was still in the darkness before day that they left the station and sped off into the open country, where the world was scarcely beginning to wake up. In London the world seems never to go to sleep. Our three travelers had had but little rest in the last twenty-four hours; and so, between the darkness of the hour, the motion of the train and their own weariness, they dozed off into dreamland, where they lingered some hours, until they were called back by the sudden stopping of the train, for an instant only, for before they were fully awake it was off again, flying northward as if pursued by the furies. Judy shook herself up and looked out of the window on her right hand to see the eastern horizon red with the coming of the wintry sun above the moorland. At noon they reached Liverpool, where they left their seats, got lunch and then changed their train for the Great Northern for York. Late in the afternoon they entered the great cathedral city, where again they left their seats, took tea and a little later took train for Chuxton. It was nearly sunset when they came to the end of their railway journey at the little market town. There was no carriage waiting to take them to Haymore.