Marltree is a junction where several lines converge, and when the train from the south came in several passengers alighted from it to change on to other routes. Amongst this crowd William Henry could not detect anything that looked like the new dairymaid. He scrutinized everybody as he sat on a seat opposite the train, and summed them up. There was a clergyman and his wife; there was a sailor; there were three or four commercial travellers; there were some nondescripts. Then his attention became riveted on a handsome young lady who left a carriage with an armful of books and papers and hurried off to the luggage-van—she was so handsome, so well dressed, and had such a good figure that William Henry's eyes followed her with admiration. Then he remembered what he had come there for, and looked again for the dairymaid. But he saw nothing that suggested her.
The people drifted away, the platform cleared, and presently nobody but the handsome young lady and William Henry remained. She stood by a trunk looking expectantly about her; he rose, intending to go. A porter appeared; she spoke to him—the porter turned to William Henry.
"Here's a lady inquiring for you, sir," he said.
The lady came forward with a smile and held out her hand.
"Are you Mr. Dennison?" she said. "I am Miss Durrant."
William Henry's first instinct was to open his mouth cavernously—his second to remove his hat.
"How do you do?" he said, falteringly. "I—I was looking about for you."
"But of course you wouldn't know me," she said. "I was looking for you."
"I've got a dog-cart outside," said William Henry. "Here, Jenkinson, bring this lady's things to my trap."
He escorted Miss Durrant, who had already sized him up as a simple-natured but very good-looking young man, to the dog-cart, saw her luggage safely stowed away at the back, helped her in, tucked her up in a thick rug, got in himself, and drove away.