The next morning, bright and early, saw Jess taking her departure from Blackheath Hall.
“There is no one here who will miss me much—except the birds and squirrels about the place, and the stray dogs,” and a very bitter little smile crept up about her mouth, to note how much Mrs. Bryson and all the servants were making of her now, after neglecting her so pitifully during all the long years of the past in which she roamed about as uncared-for as the stray dogs that crept there when the wildness of the night forced them to seek shelter.
Jess had left no one behind her who loved her, or whom she loved.
As the train moved away from the station, the girl’s new life began. Surely, the strangest fate that any young girl was ever to know. Who shall say after that that the hand of fate does not guide us along the path which destiny has marked out for us to follow at the time of our birth?
Jess paid strict heed to Mrs. Bryson’s warning to keep her veil drawn carefully over her face; but through its heavy folds she could see the green fields and silvery streams, the villas and towns, as the lightning express whirled by them, and she was lost in wonder at the great world that lay beyond Blackheath Hall.
In her wildest imagination, she had never pictured the world so wide as this. The hours flew by as quickly as the miles did, it seemed to her, and her daydreaming came to a sudden end by the appearance of the conductor, who began gathering up her bag and parcels.
“This is your station, miss,” he said. “I am going to place you in charge of Mr. Abbot’s brother-in-law, a Mr. Caldwell, who telegraphed me to the station below that he was already at the station to meet you.”
It was like a dream to Jess, she was so little used to traveling, and was so bewildered, of being bustled out of the train, and led toward a portly, old gentleman, who was advancing in all haste to meet the conductor and herself.
“Is this the little girl, Jess, whom my brother-in-law placed in your charge, conductor?” she heard him ask, in a hale, hearty voice.
She was too dazed to hear the reply.