Mysie could not speak.  She was overwhelmed by the blast of oratory upon air, and a woman who sat on the far side of a closed window, with tight-drawn lips and smoldering eyes, looked challengingly at this fresh air fanatic, observing with quiet sarcasm:  “A complexion like that might make a fortune, if done with colors to the life, in advertising some one’s ’Old Highland’!”

The fresh air apostle gasped a little, looking across at the grim set mouth and the quiet, steady eyes, as if he would like to retort; but, finding no ready words, he merely wiped his forehead, and then subsided helplessly in his corner seat, as the lady rose, and, going over to the window, said to Mysie, as she closed it:  “It is a little cold to-night, after the scorching heat of the daytime, and one is apt to catch cold very readily in a draught at an open carriage window.  There, we’ll all feel more comfortable now, I fancy.  It is a little chilly.”  The poor worm who had always lived and thrived upon fresh air felt himself shriveling up in the corner, and growing so small that he might easily slip through the seam at the hinges of the carriage door.

Mysie merely lay back in her corner without speaking.  She had never traveled much in the train; and this journey, apart from its eventfulness, was sufficient in itself to stupefy her with its newness and immensity.  She had never before had a longer journey than to the county town, which cost sixpence; and here she was going to Edinburgh! a great city, of which she had all the dread of the inexperienced, unsophisticated country girl.  A slight shiver soon began to creep down her back, and gradually she became cold; but she sat never speaking, and the other two occupants were so engrossed in thinking out maledictions against each other, that they had no thoughts to bestow upon her.

The wild, bleak moors rolled past, as the train rushed onward, and the telegraph poles seemed to scamper along, as if frightened by the noise of the train.  She gazed away to the far horizon, where the sun had left a faint glow upon the western clouds, and she tried to think of something that would not betray her nervousness, but her mind was all chaos and excitement, and strange expectation.

What would be waiting for her at the end of the journey?  Suppose Peter failed to be at the station, what would she do in a strange city?  What if he were ill, and would not come?  Or if he was doing this deliberately, and did not mean to meet her?  Thus, torn by anxiety, and worried almost to death by nameless other fears, she spent the hour-long journey which seemed like a day, making herself ill, so that she could scarcely leave the carriage when the train steamed into Princes Street Station.

“Have you any luggage that I can assist you with?” asked the fresh air man, as Mysie seemed reluctant to get out, now that she had arrived at her destination.

“No,” she replied simply, forgetting to thank him for his kind consideration, and rising slowly to her feet, she followed the stream of passengers down the platform, keeping a keen look-out for Peter.