"Pen, you tell us one, will you?" said Esther, lifting her little sister on to her lap, and holding her very close. "You can tell stories better than I can."
Angela in her corner kept her back turned to them, looking out of window very persistently, and winking very hard. But when the story was fairly begun she too crept up and nestled close to Esther, with her face well hidden behind Poppy's back and Esther's encircling arm.
The request roused Penelope from her own depression. She loved to tell stories. Usually she made up her own, for she had read but few to repeat; and the children always preferred hers, for, somehow, she seemed to know exactly what they liked. Now it seemed as though she understood perfectly just what would cheer them, and what to avoid, and they listened in perfect silence, drinking in comfort.
"Don't stop, don't stop!" pleaded Poppy, when the obvious end had been reached. But at that moment the train drew up, and Esther's eyes, wandering idly over the little station to see what place they had reached, read 'Dorsham' on the signboard, and sprang to her feet with such energy as to send Angela and Poppy tottering across the carriage.
"We are come," she gasped. "Oh girls, we are come! What shall we do?"
"Dorsham, Do-orsham," shouted a porter outside, in confirmation of her words, and the carriage immediately became a scene of wild confusion and excitement.
"I wonder if there is any one here to meet us," said Esther, as she tidied Poppy's dark hair and put on her hat. "Perhaps some of us had better get out and see, or they'll think we have not come."
They were all almost breathless with nervous excitement, and Esther was just popping her head out of the window to try to open the carriage door when a little lady came hurrying along the platform, her cheeks very pink, her eyes bright with anxiety. When she saw Esther she stopped, her face brightening with an expectant smile. When her eye fell on the three other little faces gazing out through the side windows with eager curiosity, her face brightened still more.
"Oh," she gasped, "are you—I think you must be the little Carrolls from Framley, my young cousins. I am Miss Charlotte Ashe, Cousin Charlotte— and I've come to meet you—are you Esther? I think you must be."
Esther's face had brightened too, with relief. This gentle little lady was so unlike the formidable stranger she had been dreading so, she felt quite at ease at once.