The train had started before Isla’s travelling companion caught a glimpse of her face. She rose up with a sudden bang from her seat, with the result that, in spite of herself, Isla lowered her paper a little to see what was going to happen. What she did see was only the purple lady removing her large and unsuitable headgear, which seemed to interfere with her comfort. "Hats are gettin’ worse every day," she said with a pleasant smile as she jabbed two immense pins with imitation moonstone tops into the stuffing of the cushions behind her. "Soon they’ll need to get us hat-compartments. Eh--what? Now, where have I seen you before?" She took some hairpins from her abundant and really pretty hair, and with a back-comb began to do her toilet. Isla was saved the difficulty of answering by a sudden gleam of recognition wandering across the lady’s face. "Oh, I know--on the road right down there in Glenogle yesterday! Now, ain’t you jolly glad to be gettin’ away from that God-forsaken hole?" "Just at the present moment I am," Isla admitted. She wondered what means she should take to ensure for herself quiet and privacy. She was incapable of any act of studied rudeness, but the prospect of listening to the woman’s talk appalled her. Should she call the guard and ask to be given another seat in another compartment, or should she politely inform her fellow-traveller that she did not care to talk. The lady flopped upon her seat, shook her head to see whether the coils of her hair were firmer, and then settled herself back among the cushions, smoothing out the creases of her cheap blanket-coat with a plump white hand. She had now a black frock on, but, in contrast with Isla’s neat, trim, well-fitting suit of home-spun, it looked badly cut, badly worn, altogether unsuitable for a journey. There were quantities of white net--not too clean--about her neck, and many brooches and a long chain, on which hung a lorgnette, while a double eyeglass was pinned to her bosom. She wore a great many rings of sorts and a wedding one. Isla’s eyes were quick enough to detect that. "Goin’ all the way?" she asked with an engaging smile. Isla nodded. "So am I, and jolly glad I’ll be to hear the noise and smell the good old smells of the Euston Road. How they live up there! But there--it ain’t livin’, is it now? Would you call it livin’--eh?" "Well," said Isla, diverted in spite of herself, and feeling no longer the appalling dread that pursued her in Glenogle regarding this very woman, "it depends on what you call living." "Just so. Well, I like a bit of fun myself--a night out occasionally and a bit of stir in the daytime. Them hills, and big, dark locks get on my nerves. I was four days at the little hotel at Strathyre, and I had just about enough of it." "Visiting friends in the neighbourhood?"