It seemed a very short time to me when we arrived at the railway. As it happened, a train was to start immediately, and within a few minutes more we were rushing along this mighty highway, hurrying to the universal centre--going to London. Alice had never travelled in her primitive life. Grieved and full of anxiety as she was for me, Alice was too natural a woman not to show a faint glimmer of expectation when I spoke of London; and while she folded my mantle round me, and wrapped a shawl about my feet, she looked out at the strange road-side stations and unfamiliar country through which we dashed, with an excited yet half dizzy curiosity; for Alice was disposed to think we were rushing upon some catastrophe at this frightful, headlong speed. For me, I doubled my veil over my face, and withdrew into the corner, and was thankful for the kindly shade of night, when it fell at last. I could not bear to recall my last journey hither, if I could in reality recall it--if I could go back and change the past; but, no--I would not have done that even now. When we arrived, Alice was helpless--the bustle, the speed, the lights and noise of the great terminus we had come to, made her sick and giddy. She could only stand helplessly among the crowd, pushed about by the active people round her, looking to me for directions--which, weak and overcome as I was, I was not only able to give, and scarcely less a novice than she was in the art of taking care of myself; however, we managed to extricate ourselves at last, and drove away, a long fatiguing course, to the hotel where I had been with my husband immediately after our marriage. I remembered its name. It was scarcely less strange to me than to Alice, to pass through those continuous never-ending streets, sparkling with light and full of noise, and what seemed tumult to us. I grasped her hand instinctively, and she clung to me. We were both helpless women alone in the midst of this busy crowd, no one protecting, no--no one knowing where we went, I began to have a glimpse of what was before me now, as well as of what was behind--and self-protection and self-support do not show in their proper heroic colors, when you have to exercise them first upon a journey, and when your frame is weakened and your mind disturbed. I felt to myself something like a suicide. I had succeeded. I had put a barrier between my former and my future life. I had new habits to learn; new faculties to cultivate. I was no longer to be taken care of--everything was new.