Meg of the heather

by Evelyn R. Garratt

He had obtained a job in one of the suburbs of London to which he went daily by train, and the day on which Mrs. Webb took Meg and Willie into the country, found him at the same station but on another platform to the one from which the train for Hampstead Heath started.

He was leaning against the corner of a smoking carriage looking weary and despondent, lazily watching a train that was slowly moving out of the station. The train was so close to the one in which he sat that he could have shaken hands with the people in the carriages which were passing him.

Suddenly he became aware that coming towards him was a carriage out of the window of which leant a head of auburn hair.

The head was uncovered, for Meg, having a headache, had thrown off her hat. As Jem caught sight of her she was leaning far out with her eyes fastened on him.

The carriages were nearly opposite now. They both stared at one another as if dazed, then Jem sprang to his feet and tried to wrench open the door. He must get to her; there would be just time in which to spring on to the foot rail for the train was moving very slowly. But the door being locked resisted all his efforts. The veins on his temple stood out like cords, as he was conscious that the speed of the train was increasing. Then something hit his shoulder and fell at his feet and the next moment a curve in the line took Meg out of his sight.

Jem dropped into his seat gasping, and took out his pocket handkerchief to wipe his forehead. His disappointment was so bitter that he could only groan. Then suddenly his foot touched something and on looking down he caught sight of a deep red rose. The expression of his whole face changed, as he realized from whom the rose must have come and gradually it dawned upon him that the girl who had looked at him with such startled eyes from the moving train was Meg of the heather rather than Meg of Friars Court. There had been none of the queenly dignity he had noticed on the day of the concert, which had seemed to put her at such a distance from him as she had stood on the platform dressed in her shimmering green dress. The head of hair that leant out of the window was a little rumpled, and the look of the eyes had been eager and excited. Jem, as he remembered these things, could have shouted for joy. Supposing that Mr. Fortescue had been right and Meg after all loved him still! But no, he must put that wild idea out of his mind; the possibility of being a second time disappointed was unbearable; he would not build his hopes so high.

But it was something to know that Meg did not repulse him, had leaned out of the carriage window towards him instead of hiding from his sight, that she had evidently forgiven him his mad action on the day of the concert. It was everything too to know that she was alive and apparently happy. He picked up the rose and stuck it into his button hole, with the resolve that it should stay there till Meg herself replaced it with another, for the sight of the girl had filled him with fresh courage and a firmer resolve to look for her till he found her.

Meanwhile Meg, after throwing the rose, looked round at Mrs. Webb with love light in her eyes.

"It was Jem," she said in an awed tone of voice.

Mrs. Webb had been watching the extraordinary conduct of her companion with astonishment. It had been quite a shock to her, and she was experiencing a keen sense of disappointment. To think that such a nice respectable girl should so lose her sense of what was right and proper as to throw a rose in at a carriage window to a strange young man. Mrs. Webb's sense of propriety was outraged.