The next day was spent in a wearisome stage coach, over a rough, jolting road. Ellen's companions did nothing to make her way pleasant, but she sweetened theirs with her sugar- plums. Somewhat mollified, perhaps, after that, Miss Margaret condescended to enter into conversation with her, and Ellen underwent a thorough cross-examination as to all her own and her parents' affairs, past, present, and future; and likewise as to all that could be known of her yesterday's friend, till she was heartily worried, and out of patience. It was just five o'clock when they reached her stopping-place. Ellen knew of no particular house to go to, so Mrs. Dunscombe set her down at the door of the principal inn of the town, called the "Star," of Thirlwall. The driver smacked his whip, and away went the stage again, and she was left, standing alone, beside her trunk, before the piazza of the inn, watching Timmins, who was looking back at her out of the stage window, nodding and waving good-bye. CHAPTER IX. The little Queen in the Arm-Chair. Ellen had been whirled along over the roads for so many hours — the rattle of the stage-coach had filled her ears for so long — that now, suddenly still and quiet, she felt half- stunned. She stood with a kind of dreamy feeling, looking after the departing stage-coach. In it there were three people whose faces she knew, and she could not count a fourth within many a mile. One of those was a friend, too, as the fluttering handkerchief of poor Miss Timmins gave token still. Yet Ellen did not wish herself back in the coach, although she continued to stand and gaze after it as it rattled off at a great rate down the little street, its huge body lumbering up and down every now and then, reminding her of sundry uncomfortable jolts; till the horses making a sudden turn to the right, it disappeared round a corner. Still for a minute Ellen watched the whirling cloud of dust it had left behind; but then the feeling of strangeness and loneliness came over her, and her heart sank. She cast a look up and down the street. The afternoon was lovely; the slant beams of the setting sun came back from gilded windows, and the houses and chimney-tops of the little town were in a glow; but she saw nothing bright anywhere; in all the glory of the setting sun the little town looked strange and miserable. There was no sign of her having been expected; nobody was waiting to meet her. What was to be done next? Ellen had not the slightest idea.