"The poor, distracted thing just clings to us," said Mrs. Slifer. "I shouldn't wonder if she was as lonely as could be." "All the same," Beatrice, the doubting Thomas of the group, now commented, "I don't think however excited she was she ought to have shaken you like that, mother." Beatrice had examined the appurtenances of the great room with a touch of nonchalance. It was she whom Gregory had seen at the station, seated on the pile of luggage. "That's petty of you, Bee," said Mrs. Slifer gravely. "Real small and petty. It's a great soul at white heat we've been looking at." Handcock at this point brought in tea, and after she had placed the tray and disposed the plates of cake and bread-and-butter and left the Slifers alone again, Mrs. Slifer went on under her breath, seating herself to pour out the tea. "And do look at this tea-pot, girls; isn't it too cute for words. My! What will the Jones say when they hear about this! They'd give their eye-teeth to be with us now." The Slifers, indeed, were never to forget their adventure. It was to be impressed upon their minds not only by its supreme enviableness but by its supreme discomfort. It was almost five when, like three Ganymedes uplifted by the talons of a fierce, bright bird, they soared with Madame von Marwitz towards Truro, and at Truro, in spite of a reckless speed which desperately dishevelled their hair and hats, they arrived too late to catch the 6.40 train for Exeter. Madame von Marwitz strode majestically along the platform, her white cloak trailing in the dust, called for station-masters, demanded special trains, fixed haughty, uncomprehending eyes upon the officials who informed her that she could not possibly get a train until ten, resigned herself, with sundry exclamations of indignation and stamps of the foot, to the tedious wait, sailed into the refreshment room only to sail out again, mounted the car not yet dismissed, bore the Slifers to a hotel where they had a dinner over which she murmured at intervals "_Bon Dieu, est-ce-donc possible!_" and then, in the chill, dark evening, toured about in the adjacent country until ten, when Burton was sent back to Les Solitudes and when they all got into the train for Exeter. She had never in all her life travelled alone before. She hardly knew how to procure her ticket, and her helplessness in regard to box and dressing-case was so apparent that Mrs. Slifer saw to the one and Maude carried the other, together with the fur-lined coat when this was thrown aside. The hours that they passed with her in the train were the strangest that the Slifers had ever passed. They were chilled, they were sleepy, they were utterly exhausted; but they kept their eyes fixed on the perplexing, resplendent object that upbore them.