The journey from London was not a very long one. Late in the season as it was, the sun had not yet set when Winifred and Celia found themselves steaming into their own station, where a carriage and a pencilled note from Louise awaited them. "I have been longing to go to meet you, but find I cannot manage it, as Mr Peckerton is here and papa needs me. So delightful to know you are coming home." "Dear me!" said Winifred, when she and Celia were comfortably settled in the carriage, and bowling away quickly on the smooth high-road to White Turrets--"dear me, what a `Little Peddlington' life it will seem after London! Poor Louise, as full of her accounts and village matters and old women's flannel petticoats as ever, I suppose!" Celia did not reply. Winifred's tone jarred upon her. She was gazing out of the window at the reddening sky, just where the sun was setting. It was a lovely evening, and her whole feelings were touched and quickened by the returning home. A moment or two later they drove in at their own lodge, and then a turn in the avenue--a grand old avenue, bordered by trees which had lived through more than one or two human generations--brought them, while still at some distance, within view of the house itself. It could scarcely have been seen to greater advantage than standing out as it did against the autumn sky, with the sunset glow illuminating the clouds, banked up, blue-grey and cold looking near the horizon; though overhead the pearly, neutral-tinted expanse, already shadowing into darker tones, still told of the mildness and calm of the fast-waning day. "Look, Winifred, look," cried the younger girl, "did you ever see the house more picturesque? It has that wonderful old-world look--the `fairy-story look,' I used to call it when I was little. It is as pure white as if it had just sprung up by magic, and yet it seems as if it might have been standing there for thousands of years--as if the White Cat had just ridden off from the door on a hunting-party." "Or as if the Sleeping Beauty were sleeping there still, waiting for the perfect prince, who never comes except in your fairy tales, Celia," said Winifred, with a touch of contempt in her tone. But the fancy did not displease her sister. She only laughed softly. "Well, _we_ don't waste much thought on him," she said. "Dear old White Turrets! I do love it. It doesn't need a prince, Winifred. You know it has always prospered best in the hands of a woman." Winifred's face clouded. "I wish you would forget that old nonsense," she said. "There are women and women--no one will understand that. It may suit some women to drone along and never leave their own village, but it wouldn't suit _me_, and that is all that I am concerned about." Celia sighed, but her sigh was not a very profound one. She was feeling too happy for that.