"Is your husband alive still?"
"No--dead. Killed in action he was, a-savin' of his Colonel. I've got the little brown cross at home somewhere. These were the days! There never was a braver chap than Joe Bisley ever shouldered a musket. Ah, poor Joe!"
Isla, perceiving that her companion was now in the throes of reminiscence, shrank back nervously in her corner.
"Doesn't it make your head ache to talk in the train?" she asked rather hastily. "There are heaps of papers here if you like to read. You are welcome to any of them. The gentleman who saw me off bought a great many."
"Ah, I don't wonder!" said the other with an admiring glance of approval. "You are just the sort that they would buy everything for if they got the chance. A little standoffish, too--ain't that what they like? Oh, I know them through and through!"
In spite of herself, Isla laughed out loud.
"Oh, it was a very old friend of my family who was seeing me off to-day! My father's lawyer in fact."
"Ah, then, he knew what side his bread was buttered on. And are you goin' to London, may I ask?"
"Yes."
"What particular part?"