At Stafford he had to change into another train, which he did, even as he cut his magazine, with characteristic precision and coolness. And so he reached Blore Station about half-past five, still neat and unsullied, with all the aroma of the street of scents about him. He let down the window and put out his head. The country thereabouts was flat and uninteresting, the farming untidy, the fences low, yet straggling. A short distance away a few roofs peeping forth from a clump of trees, above which the smoke gently curled, marked the village. The station consisted of a mere shed and a long, bare platform. There were but five persons visible, and of these one was a porter, and one a man servant in a quiet, countrified livery. The latter walked quickly toward him, but was forestalled by three girls, the other occupants of the platform, who, at sight of the stranger, came tearing from the far end of it at a headlong pace. "Here he is! Here he is!" cried the foremost, her shrill voice drawing a dozen heads to the windows of the train. She owed her success to an extempore tug in the form of an excited bull terrier, which, dragging violently at a strap attached to her wrist, jerked her after him much as if she had been a kettle tied to his tail. She might be anything between twenty and five-and-twenty--a tiny little creature of almost fairylike proportions. Her color was high and her hair brown; she had curiously opaque brown eyes, bright as well as opaque. Gloves she had none, and her hair was disordered by her struggles with the dog. But, after all, the main impression she made upon Maitland was that she was excessively small. He had no eyes for the others at present. But one, owing to the reckless method of her progression, gave him a dim notion of being all legs. "You are Mr. Maitland, are you not?" the first comer began volubly, though loss of breath interfered a little with the symmetry of her sentences. "Tom had to attend a meeting of the fox committee at Annerley. I'm Maggie Quaritch, and this is Dubs--I beg your pardon, how silly of me--Joan, I mean, and this is Agnes. Why, child, what have you done with your hat? Pick it up at once! What wild things Mr. Maitland will think us!" The youngest girl, whose hat was lying upon the platform some distance away, hung her head in a very pretty attitude of shy _gaucherie_. She was about fifteen--rising sixteen in her brother's phrase--and taller than the elder girls, with a peculiarly pale complexion, greenish-gray eyes, and a mass of brownish-red hair. Her loosely made dress was more in consonance with her style than Maitland, staggering under the shock of such a reception, had time or mind to observe. He formally acknowledged the introductions, but words did not come easily to him. He was dumfounded. He was so unaccustomed to this, or to people like these.