It was a clear and beautiful night, and the stars twinkled brightly over the black tree-tops.  Down in the narrow gorge through which the road runs they could not feel the keen wind that was blowing up on Exmoor.  The waters of the Sym, whose windings they followed, gurgled over their stones almost as quietly as in summer.  There was a fresh wet smell, consoling and delicious after the train, the smell of country puddles and country mud and dank dead leaves that had been rained upon all day.  Fritzing sat with the Princess on the back seat of the dog-cart, and busied himself keeping the rug well round her, the while his soul was full of thankfulness that their journey should after all have been so easy.  He was weary in body, but very jubilant in mind.  The Princess was so weary in body that she had no mind at all, and dozed and nodded and threatened to fall out, and would have fallen out a dozen times but for Fritzing’s watchfulness.  As for Annalise, who can guess what thoughts were hers while she was being jogged along to Baker’s?  That they were dark I have not a doubt.  No one had told her this was to be a journey into the Ideal; no one had told her anything but that she was promoted to travelling with the Princess and that she would be well paid so long as she held her tongue.  She had never travelled before, yet there were some circumstances of the journey that could not fail to strike the most inexperienced.  This midnight jogging in the dog-cart, for instance.  It was the second night spent out of bed, and all day long she had expected every moment would end the journey, and the end, she had naturally supposed, would be a palace.  There would be a palace, and warmth, and light, and food, and welcome, and honour, and appreciative lacqueys with beautiful white silk calves—­alas, Annalise’s ideal, her one ideal, was to be for ever where there were beautiful white silk calves.  The road between Ullerton and Symford conveyed to her mind no assurance whatever of the near neighbourhood of such things; and as for the dog-cart—­“Himmel,” said Annalise to herself, whenever she thought of the dog-cart.

Their journey ended at two in the morning.  Almost exactly at that hour they stopped at the garden gate of Baker’s Farm, and a woman came out with a lantern and helped them down and lighted them up the path to the porch.  The Princess, who could hardly make her eyes open themselves, leaned on Fritzing’s arm in a sort of confused dream, got somehow up a little staircase that seemed extraordinarily steep and curly, and was sound asleep in a knobbly bed before Annalise realized she had done with her.  Priscilla had forgotten all about the Ideal, all about her eager aspirations.  Sleep, dear Mother with the cool hand, had smoothed them all away, the whole rubbish of those daylight toys, and for the next twelve hours sat tenderly by her pillow, her finger on her lips.

V