In another moment they were all on the platform being introduced.
"This is Penelope, and this is Poppy, the youngest of us, and this is Angela, the third," she said with the air of a proprietor, "and I am the eldest."
"I am delighted to see you all, my dears," said Miss Ashe warmly, kissing each in turn. She felt a little nervous under the fire of four pairs of enquiring eyes; there was nothing rude, though, in their stare; it was simply full of a wistful, half-incredulous pleasure. They could scarcely believe their eyes and ears that things were turning out so much less dreadful than they expected.
Then followed a moment of bustle, while the station-master and the one porter went in search of the luggage, and the children were led up to identify the various things as they should be lifted out. When they were told that the two shabby trunks were all there were to identify, disappointment was only too plainly written on the men's faces.
Seeing how little it was, the porter readily promised "to wheel it along by and by," and Miss Ashe turned away with a sigh of relief.
"Now then, chicks," she said cheerily, "we will start for home. You won't mind a walk, I hope, dears. My house is only fifteen minutes from the station. Are you very tired?" looking anxiously from one to the other, but most anxiously at Poppy.
"Oh no," they assured her politely. "We would like to walk, Cousin Charlotte," added Esther; "after sitting still so long it will be very nice," and her sisters supported her eagerly.
The engine, with a good deal of puffing and snorting, glided on its way again. The children stood to watch it, but they saw it depart without any of the regret they had expected to feel, and then the little party turned out of the station, on the last stage of their pilgrimage to their new home.
They were accustomed to the country, of course, so that their first view of Dorsham did not affect them as it would have affected a town child, but even they exclaimed with delight at the weird, wild beauty which opened out before them. The station appeared to have sprung up in the heart of a little forest of firs, as being the most sheltered spot it could alight upon in that open country, and it was not until they had walked a little way along the white road which skirted the woods, and came to the other road which led at right angles to Dorsham, that the real beauty of the place they had come to burst upon them.
Then, "Oh!" they gasped. "Oh! oh! Cousin Charlotte, how perfectly lovely! We did not think it would be a bit like this."