The journey to Holborough lasted a little less than an hour. Miss Lovel and her companion did not talk much during that time. She was tired and thoughtful, and he respected her silence. As she drew nearer home, the happiness she had felt in her return seemed to melt away somehow, leaving vague anxieties and morbid forebodings in its stead. To go home to a father who would only be bored by her coming. It was not a lively prospect for a girl of eighteen. The dull cold gray dawn was on the housetops of Holborough, as the train stopped at the little station. The traveller alighted, and assisted Clarissa's descent to the platform. "Can I see about your luggage, Miss Lovel?" he asked; but looking up at that moment, the girl caught sight of a burly gentleman in a white neckcloth, who was staring in every direction but the right one. "Thank you very much, no; I need not trouble you. My uncle Oliver is here to meet me--that stout gentleman over there." "Then I can only say good-bye. That tiresome engine is snorting with a fiendish impatience to bear me away. Good-bye, Miss Lovel, and a thousand thanks for the companionship that has made this journey so pleasant to me." He lifted his hat and went back to the carriage, as the stout gentleman approached Clarissa. He would fain have shaken hands with her, but refrained from that unjustifiable familiarity. And so, in the bleak early autumnal dawn, they parted. * * * * * CHAPTER II. BEGINNING THE WORLD. "Who on earth was that man you were talking to, Clary?" asked the Reverend Mathew Oliver, when he had seen his niece's luggage carried off to a fly, and was conducting her to that vehicle. "Is it any one you know?" "O, no, uncle; only a gentleman who travelled in the same carriage with me from London. He was very kind." "You seemed unaccountably familiar with him," said Mr. Oliver with an aggrieved air; "you ought to be more reserved, my dear, at your age. A young lady travelling alone cannot be too careful. Indeed, it was very wrong of your father to allow you to make this long journey alone. Your aunt has been quite distressed about it." Clarissa sighed faintly; but was not deeply concerned by the idea of her aunt's distress. Distress of mind, on account of some outrage of propriety on the part of her relatives, was indeed almost the normal condition of that lady. "I travelled very comfortably, I assure you, uncle Oliver," Clarissa replied. "No one was in the least rude or unpleasant. And I am so glad to come home--I can scarcely tell you how glad--though, as I came nearer and nearer, I began to have all kinds of fanciful anxieties. I hope that all is well--that papa is quite himself."