“You need not tell me that this train is ever in time,” said Mr. Hartrick. “Well, girls, come along; I told Dennis to meet us, and here we are.”
Molly thought nothing at all of the neat brougham, with its pair of spirited grays; she was accustomed to driving in the better-class of carriage all her life; but Nora turned first pale and then crimson. She got into the carriage, and sat back in a corner; tears were brimming to her eyes.
“This is the first. How am I to bear all the rest?” she said to herself.
Mr. Hartrick, who had hoped that Nora would be pleased with the brougham, with Dennis himself, with the whole very stylish get-up, was mortified at her silence, and, taking her hand, tried to draw her out.
“Well, little girl,” he said, “I hope you will like the improvements I have made in the Castle. I have done it all at your instigation, remember.”
“At my instigation?” cried Nora. “Oh, no, Uncle George, that you have not.”
He looked at her in some amazement, then closed his lips, and said nothing more. Molly longed to get her father alone, in order to explain Nora's peculiar conduct.
“It is difficult for an Englishman to understand her,” thought Molly. “I do, and I think her altogether charming; but father, who has gone to this enormous expense and trouble, will be put out if she does not show a little gratitude. I will tell her that she must; I will take the very first opportunity.”
And now they were turning in at the well-known gates. These gates were painted white, whereas they had been almost reduced to their native wood. The avenue was quite tidy, no weeds anywhere; but Nora almost refused to look out. One by one the familiar trees seemed to pass by her as she was bowled rapidly along in the new brougham, as if they were so many ghosts saying good-by. But then there was the roar—the real, real, grand roar—of the Atlantic in her ears. No amount of tidiness, nothing could ever alter that sound.
“Oh, hurrah for the sea!” she said. She flung down the window and popped out her head.