She again looked approvingly at the number. From it she turned to a contemplation of the photographs which adorned the walls. They were the usual kind of photographs found in railway carriages—seaside promenades, ruined castles, lakes with mountains beyond. Miss Mason read the names below them with interest. She looked at the gas-globe in the roof of the carriage, with its black cover which could be drawn over it if the passengers found the light troublesome. She looked at the emergency cord which was to be pulled down to attract the attention of the guard in case of accident. She noted that the penalty for its improper use was five pounds. It seemed to Miss Mason a large sum to pay merely for pulling a little piece of string. She wondered if anyone had ever been bold enough to pull it without necessity.
After gazing at it for two minutes with a certain amount of awe, she put her arm through the padded loop by the window, and looked out at the scenery past which they were flying.
There were fields in which sheep and cows were solemnly munching the fresh grass; there were hedges covered with the fairy snow of the hawthorn blossoms; there were woods of larches, oaks, and beeches, and among them the darker green of firs; there were streams rippling golden-brown past meadow banks and clumps of rushes; there were children swinging on gates and waving cap or handkerchief as the train rushed by. She saw market carts and occasionally a dogcart on roads running by the railway, and now and then a solitary cyclist, all going at a snail’s pace so it seemed compared with the rate at which she herself was travelling. They passed houses with trimly-kept gardens alive with flowers; cottages with strips of vegetable gardens where from lines attached to posts stuck among the cabbages washing was hung out to dry. The May breeze swung the clothing to and fro, ballooning it momentarily to ridiculous shapes, fluttering red petticoats, white tablecloths, and blue blouses, like the waving of coloured flags.
Again the joyous note of youth and gladness sounded in Miss Mason’s heart. She gave a queer little gruff laugh.
“Wonderful!” she thought. “Like the fairy tales I used to read when I was little. Now I’m part of the fairy tale. Can hardly believe it. Yet it’s true.”
CHAPTER II
ANCIENT HISTORY
OUTWARDLY Miss Mason was not unlike certain pictures of the fairy godmother who escorted Cinderella to the ball. Being a fairy godmother, no doubt that old lady’s heart was every bit as young as Miss Mason’s, so the similarity may very likely have extended still further.
Of the fairy godmother’s previous history there is no known record. Miss Mason’s history was the public property of the little town in which she lived. It is not unduly lengthy. It also cannot be termed exciting.
Miss Mason became an orphan at the age of five. Her mother had been a pretty Irish girl, only daughter of a penniless Irish gentleman; and not having had enough of poverty in her own home, she gave her heart to one, Dick Mason, a struggling painter, who was as ugly as he was gay and light-hearted. In spite of poverty she had seven years of such happiness as falls to the lot of few women. Then Dick was killed riding a friend’s young unbroken mare, and a month later his wife followed him; dying—if such a complaint truly exists—of a broken heart.