With a slight bend of her head she went out into the rain, and before the two men could recover themselves she was seated in a waggonette which had been ready for some time, and, accompanied by Jean, was soon whirling along the road; her heart so hot with indignation that the pain and sorrow of going away was merged in that feeling. At the station were the Macfarlanes with many a thoughtful gift for poor Mrs. Dorriman, and it was not till the train steamed out of the station, not till the last wave of the friendly hands grew dim in the distance, that the poor woman's fortitude gave way, and that, seated alone with no prying eye upon her, she wept, and the soreness of her heart grew better as the tension gave way to this feminine luxury. The journey was troublesome more than long, there were two or three changes, and at one station two travellers got in accompanied by a bright-eyed middle-aged woman. At first Mrs. Dorriman was too much wrapped up in her own sad thoughts to take heed of what was passing, but she was at length roused by hearing her brother's name mentioned. "John Sandford is coming out in a new light," said the lady, laughing and showing a row of pretty teeth. "Fancy his adopting two girls!" "I am sorry for the girls. Who are they?" asked the elder of the two men. "I have not an idea--but I should think he had some strong reason for going out of his usual way." "I am very sorry for the girls too," laughed the lady, who looked as though she had never had any acquaintance with sorrow herself. "They are probably in some way a charge upon him. John Sandford's not a man to do anything for nothing, it's not in him." Mrs. Dorriman knew she ought to say something, but she literally had not the courage to throw such discomfiture among them. "He's had a nasty illness, and the doctor thinks he may have more attacks of the kind. He does not think him the strong man he looks." "Then perhaps he is doing some act of charity as a compromise with Providence," said the lady; "just as some men who have never been charitable or even just leave their wealth to some charity, as a sort of make-up." So her brother was ill! This, perhaps, was why he had sent for her. But the two girls, who could they be? These two new ideas so suddenly presented to her made Mrs. Dorriman oblivious to all that was going on. She would have young girls with her and so she would not be alone, and none but those who have tried it, know how depressing long-continued loneliness is, especially to one who (like Mrs. Dorriman) was by temperament, one of the women who cling to others, and to whom acting and thinking for herself was perpetual grief and pain. From the bewilderment of this future, which looked so much brighter to her with those figures in the foreground, she was once more roused by hearing, this time, not her brother's but her own name mentioned.