“Good-bye, Grandpapa—good-bye, Uncle George—down, Shamrock—good little dog!”
But Shamrock pursued Lydia and Aunt Beryl all the way to the station, and Lydia’s last sight of them showed her Aunt Beryl and the station-master uniting their efforts to prevent Shamrock from taking a flying leap on to the rails.
She felt a little lonely, a very little bit frightened, as the train rushed away with her towards London.
Eighteen, which had been a really mature age while one was still at Miss Glover’s, no longer seemed quite so grown up. The other people in the railway carriage all looked much older than that.
Lydia’s habitual self-confidence began slightly to fail her.
What if she proved not clever enough for the work at “Elena’s,” and they sent her home again? Never! She would take up teaching or dressmaking in London, sooner than admit defeat. Besides, there was her writing. She thought of various fragments that she had already put on to paper, and which honestly seemed to her to be good.
The day would come, Lydia was inwardly convinced, when these would work into some not unworthy whole.
In the meanwhile, she reminded herself, in an endeavour to regain her poise of mind, that Uncle George, Aunt Beryl, Mr. Almond, the Jacksons, Miss Glover herself, had all thought her very brave and high-spirited to go away to London by herself, and had made no doubt that her courage and capabilities alike would carry her on to triumph.
She remembered also that Nathalie Palmer had written to her, in reply to her own long letter announcing her plan. She drew the envelope from her pocket, and read Nathalie’s warm-hearted inquiries once more, feeling all the comfort of being so regarded by her friend.
“Lydia, I do think you’re splendid,” wrote Nathalie from Devonshire. “It sounds frightfully brave to be going off to live in London by yourself, and work at the accounts in a big new place like your Madame Elena’s. I hope you won’t be very lonely, but, of course you’re sure to make friends. I do quite agree with you that it will be a tremendous experience, and, of course, I know experience is what you’ve always wanted. I wonder how soon you’ll write a book. How proud I shall be when you’re a famous authoress, and all your books are in rows in my bookshelf.