He stamped his foot. "Please!" he shouted fiercely.
"Good and all? Private property?" asked Anne.
Dunlop nodded.
Anne rose. "We better go through the gap," she said in an offhand way. "Miss Emma'll try to have me whipped if we break down the hedge."
Dunlop trotted by her side in silence. As they crossed the hedge, he slipped his grimy hand in hers. "Mamma says we are going to the country next week," he announced; "and I told her you'd have to go, too."
Indeed, Dunlop flatly refused to go away without Anne. He would not yield to coaxing and he scorned threats. His wishes finally prevailed and it was decided that Anne should go with them to spend the week-end and return to town with Mr. Marshall.
The little party left 'Roseland' one warm afternoon in June, and sunset found them all dusty and tired. Dunlop, sitting by his mother, absorbed her attention. Martha was on the seat behind, with Arthur on her lap. Anne, beside her, was looking out of the window with a puzzled air. The willow-bordered river, the meadows and rolling hills, had a familiar appearance; this fresh, woodsy, evening fragrance was an odor she had known before; surely she had heard the names of the stations called by the porter.
"Lewiston!" he shouted at last.
Anne started. It was her own home station. As in a dream, she saw in the twilight the familiar red road shambling over the hills, the dingy little station with men and boys loafing on the platform, the houses scattered here and there among trees and gardens. It all came back to her. This was the route she and her mother had often travelled. A little way off was the water-tank set in a clump of willows by the roadside. 'Lewis Hall' was on the hill just beyond. In the deepening twilight, she could not see the square house among the trees.
A great longing for home possessed her. She slipped past Martha dozing with Arthur asleep in her lap; hardly knowing what she did, she ran to the rear of the car. The train was about to stop at the tank. Anne put her hand on the door-knob. It resisted. A lump came in her throat. Again she tried the knob. This time it yielded to her pressure. She stepped on the platform and closed the door behind her. As the train jerked and stood still, she almost fell but she quickly recovered herself and scrambled down the steps.