One morning at the beginning of August found Mildred ensconced in a corner of a ladies' compartment in the northern express, steaming out of Kirkton station on her journey to Westmorland. Her grief at parting from her uncle and aunt had been keen, and at present she felt somewhat like a small boat suddenly cut loose from its moorings, and drifting on a swift current towards an unknown land. It is a great event in our lives when we first leave the safe shelter of home, where constant familiarity has made everything dear to us, and even our faults have been judged by the tolerant standard of those who love us, to be plunged into a world where we know we shall be taken at a different estimate, and where, to a certain extent, that absolute reliance on another's judgment must give way to a sense of duty and responsibility on our own account. Hitherto Mrs. Graham had been Mildred's conscience, the one being in the world to whom she could take each trouble and difficulty, and could lay bare every part of her soul; and there had existed between the two that entire confidence which is only possible with those who have known us from our first years, and who also have that rare gift of absolute sympathy which makes them able to understand our innermost mind.
We seldom question our earliest friends. They have grown dear to us long before we are at an age to criticize them, our love afterwards blurs our sight to what failings they possess, and consciously or unconsciously we are apt to measure all others by their standard. Mildred felt that her new relations, however kind they might prove, would never be the same as those who had stood to her in the place of father and mother. This separation must necessarily cast her on her own self-reliance; it was the break between childhood and womanhood, the parting of the ways, when she must loose the hand that had guided her so carefully, and take her life into her own keeping. That it would be extremely good for her, Mrs. Graham had no doubt. Mildred was so childish for her age, so dependent and lacking in initiative, that it was time indeed she should begin to think for herself, and gain greater confidence. She needed to be shaken out of her dreamy ways, and given a wider knowledge of the world. Seven weeks among entirely fresh surroundings would be a wholesome probation, and at the end of the holiday she would be in a position to decide whether the new or the old régime was the more congenial.
CHAPTER XI
The Towers
Mildred meantime was speeding northward, and once the wrench of parting from home was over, she could not be altogether unattracted by the novelty of the change in store for her, and the prospect of seeing fresh places and faces. The dingy bricks and mortar of the town had given place to green fields, woods, and streams, and these in their turn yielded to bare moorland slopes, with stone walls instead of hedges, till presently in the distance she could catch her first glimpse of the hills, their grey peaks outlined against a pale-blue sky. The train ran on for fully an hour more, between craggy heights and thickly-wooded glens, the scenery growing in beauty with every mile, till at length the engine plunged with a whistle into a long tunnel, and finally emerged at the little station of Whiterigg.
"Here you are, Miss!" cried the guard, flinging open the carriage door, and helping her out in a hurry. "Your luggage is at the end of the platform. We're a bit late to-day. Right away!"
And waving his flag, he jumped into his van as it passed him, leaving Mildred standing with her violin case in one hand and a bag in the other, almost bewildered at this sudden termination of her journey. As the retreating train rumbled away in the distance she heard the hoot of a motor-horn, and a car came rapidly along the road and drew up at the gate below. A tall, handsome man jumped out, and ran up the station steps on to the platform.