They reached the station just as the train was about to start, and had barely time to hurry into the carriage that had been engaged for them before the whistle shrieked and they were off. Fortunately Frisbie had sent the luggage on in advance, and got it ticketed. The carriage had four back and four front seats. Lord and Lady Vincent occupied two of the back seats, and their four servants the front ones. As they went on the fog really seemed to thicken. They traveled slowly and stopped often. And Claudia, in surprise, remarked upon these facts. "One might as well be in a stage--for speed," she complained. "It is the parliamentary train," he replied. "I have heard you say that before; but I do not know what you mean by 'parliamentary' as applied to railway trains." "It is the cheap train, the slow train, the people's train; in fact, one that, in addition to first- and second-class carriages, drags behind it an interminable length of rough cars, in which the lower orders travel," said his lordship. "But why is it called the 'parliamentary'?" "Because it was instituted by act of parliament for the accommodation of the people, or perhaps because it is so heavy and slow." On they went, hour after hour, stopping every three or four miles, while the fog seemed still to condense and whiten. At noon the train reached York, and stopped twenty minutes for refreshment. Lord Vincent did not leave the carriage, but sent his valet out to the station restaurant to procure what was needful for his party. And while the passengers were all hurrying to and fro, and looking in at the carriage, he drew the curtains of his windows, and sat back far in his seat. Claudia would gladly have left the train and spent the interval in contemplating, even if it were only the outside of the ancient cathedral of which she had read and heard so much. Lord Vincent assured her there was no time to lose in sight-seeing then, but promised that she should visit York at some future period. And the train started again. They began to leave the fog behind them as they approached the seacoast. They soon came in sight of the North Sea, beside which the railway ran for some hundred miles. Here all was bright and clear. And Claudia for a time forgot all the suspicions and anxieties that disturbed her mind, and with all a stranger's interest gazed on the grandeur of the scenery and dreamed over the associations it awakened. Here "lofty Seaton-Delaval" was pointed out to her. And Tinemouth, famed in song for its "haughty prioress," and "Holy Isle," memorable for the inhumation of Constance de Beverly. At sunset they crossed Berwick bridge and entered Scotland. Claudia was entirely lost in gazing on the present landscape, and dreaming of its past history. Here the association between scenery and poetry was perfect. Nature is ever young--and this was the very scene and the very hour described in Scott's immortal poem, and as Claudia gazed she murmured the lines: