"You can get carriages enough. I don't know about no places. Then you'll take breakfast at six, ma'am? You'll be called." With which she shewed Rotha into a bare little hotel room, lit a lamp, and left her. Rotha refreshed herself with cold water and put her hair in order. It must be half past three then. She went to the window, pulled up the shade and opened the sash and sat down. At half past three in the morning, when the season is no further advanced than May, the world is still nearly dark. Yet two cocks were answering each other from different roosts in the neighbourhood, and announcing that morning was on its way. The sky gave little token yet, however; and the stars sparkled silently out of its dark depths. The rush and the roar of the train, and of life itself, seemed to be left behind; the air had the fresh sweetness which it never can have where human beings do greatly congregate; there was a spice in it which Rotha had not tasted for a long while. That sort of spice is enlivening and refreshing; there is a good tonic in it, which Rotha felt and enjoyed; at the same time it warned her she was in new circumstances. She had an uneasy suspicion, or intuition rather, that these new circumstances were not intended, so far as her aunt's intentions affected them, to be of transient duration. It was all very well to talk of July or the beginning of August; truth has a way of making itself known independent of words and even athwart them; and so it had been now; and while Mrs. Busby talked of the middle of summer, some subtle sense in Rotha's nature translated the words and made them signify an indefinite and distant future, almost as uncertain as indefinite. Rotha could not help feeling that it might be long before she saw New York or Mrs. Mowbray again; and anew the wondering thought arose, why Mrs. Mowbray should have been incapacitated for helping her precisely at this juncture? It was mysterious. It was evident that a higher rule than Mrs. Busby's was taking effect here; it was plain that not her aunt alone had willed to put her away from all she trusted and delighted in, and bring her to this strange place; where she would be utterly alone and uncared- for and shut off from all her beloved pursuits. But why?