The road from Chester to Hilton was a pleasant one. On one side was the railway, with the river beyond; on the other, green meadows rolling up and away to the distant hills. There were few houses, and these scattered at long distances. To Sue the road was familiar and friendly enough; but to Clarice it seemed an endless way stretching through an endless desert. She was thoroughly frightened, and her blood was of the kind that turns to water; very different from the fire that filled Sue's veins and made her ready to meet an army, or charge a windmill or a railway-train, or anything else that should cross her path.
Over and over again Clarice lamented that she had ever come to Hilton.
"Why did I come to this hateful, poky place?" she wailed. "Aunt Jane didn't want me to come. She said there wouldn't be anybody here fit for me to associate with. Oh! why did I come?"
"I suppose because you wanted to!" said Sue; and it might have been Mary that spoke.
"Come, Clarice," she went on more gently, "we might as well make the best of it. Let's tell stories. I'll begin, if you like. Do you know about the Maid of Saragossa? That is splendid! Or Cochrane's 'Bonny Grizzy'? Oh! she had to do much worse things than this, and she never was afraid a bit—not a single bit."
Sue told the brave story, and the thrill in her voice might have warmed an oyster; but Clarice was not an oyster, and it left her cold.
"Grizzy is a horrid, ugly name," she said. "And I think it was real unladylike, dressing up that way, so there!"
"Clarice!"—Sue's voice quivered with indignation,—"when it was to save her father's life! How can you? But perhaps you will care more about the Maid of Saragossa."
But after a while Clarice declared that the stories only made her more nervous. She was unconscious of the fact that they had carried her over two miles of the dreaded six.
"Besides," she said peevishly, "I can't hear when you are talking, Sue. Listen! I thought I heard footsteps behind us. I do! Sue Penrose, there is some one following us!"