Within an hour all depression had vanished; hopes and anticipations for the new environment filled the foreground of my thoughts. Without adequate reason, I believed that the change I was making was for my good; that with new faces about me, with new and closer interests which, alone as I was in the world, I must substitute for a home, I was about to escape from all former associations and the memories they fostered.
Only one thought troubled me, that was the connection by Delia Beaseley of Doctor Rugvie's name with that of George Jackson—my mother's husband. I had hoped never to hear that name again.
For an hour I peered at the dark Hudson, the shadowed hills; the night fell, blotting out the landscape wholly and shutting me into the warm brilliantly lighted car with a sense of cosy security.
I looked at the few people I could see over the high sections. Three women were opposite to me, two of them young. I found myself calculating the cost of their dresses and accessories, their furs and hats. I reckoned the amount to be something like my wages on the farm for six years. How easily and unconsciously they wore their good clothes! One of the two younger held my attention. She was fair, slender, long-throated, and carried herself with noticeable erectness. I caught bits of their conversation carried on in low pleasing voices:
"It will be such a surprise to them."
"... the C. P. steamer—"
"Oh, fancy! They must have known—"
"... you know I am glad to be at home this winter..."
"Where is it? ..."
"Somewhere in Richelieu-en-Bas—"