I was dreadfully sorry when we reached Carlisle, for there my journey ended—for that day at least. I was to spend the night with a maiden aunt, living near Carlisle, and go on to Inverness the next morning. The station came in sight only too soon. My companion had been telling me some mountaineering experiences which had been called to his mind by the scenery we had been passing through, and the train pulled up in the middle of a most exciting story. I had to leave him clinging to a bare wall of rock in a blinding snowstorm, while I went off to spend the night with my Aunt Maria. There was no help for it. My aunt, a thin, quaint old lady, stood waiting on the platform. She wore a huge coalscuttle bonnet, which in these days of smaller head coverings looked strange and out of proportion, a short imitation sealskin jacket, and a perfectly plain skirt, which exposed her slender build in the most uncompromising (or perhaps I ought to say compromising) fashion.
I recognised her at once, and felt secretly ashamed of my poor relation. It was horrid of me, and I hated myself for it; but at that moment I really did feel ashamed of her appearance, and actually comforted myself with the thought that my companion had seen my fashionable and befrilled sister at Euston.
I was pleased to find that he was as sorry to part as I was. He broke off his story with an exclamation of disgust. "I thought you said you were going to Scotland," he cried.
"So I am," I answered; "but not till to-morrow."
Here Aunt Maria came forward. I had to get out and be folded in the embrace of two bony arms. My companion (I had not found out his name) had, in the meantime, put my bag and my bundles upon the platform, and was standing, cap in hand, bowing a farewell.
He looked so pleasant, and Aunt Maria so forbidding, that my heart sank at the thought that he was going away, and that in all probability I should never see him again. Involuntarily I stretched out my hand to bid him a more friendly good-bye. Perhaps it was forward of me—Lucy always says I have such queer manners—but really I could not help it; I felt so sorry that our pleasant acquaintance should come to an end so soon.
"PERHAPS IT WAS FORWARD OF ME."
Mysie Sutherland met me at Inverness. A pompous-looking footman came forward and condescended to carry my bag; one porter took my box to a cart in waiting, another put my rugs into the carriage, and Mysie and I went off at the rate of ten miles an hour. The pleasure of meeting her, the speed of the motion, the comfort of the well-stuffed cushions, quite raised my spirits. How different from trudging along with cross Aunt Maria!
We soon arrived at Strathnasheen House, and a very fine place it looked as we drove through the park. I began to get a little nervous again at the thought of meeting strangers; but Mysie comforted me, saying that her mother was just an angel, and her father very nice when you got used to him. As I had never been intimate with angels, and hardly expected to be there long enough to get used to an old man's peculiarities, I still trembled.