“I shall not want to go poking about,” said sour little Mary; and just as suddenly as she had begun to be rather sorry for Mr. Archibald Craven she began to cease to be sorry and to think he was unpleasant enough to deserve all that had happened to him.

And she turned her face toward the streaming panes of the window of the railway carriage and gazed out at the gray rain-storm which looked as if it would go on forever and ever.  She watched it so long and steadily that the grayness grew heavier and heavier before her eyes and she fell asleep.

CHAPTER III

ACROSS THE MOOR

She slept a long time, and when she awakened Mrs. Medlock had bought a lunchbasket at one of the stations and they had some chicken and cold beef and bread and butter and some hot tea.  The rain seemed to be streaming down more heavily than ever and everybody in the station wore wet and glistening waterproofs.  The guard lighted the lamps in the carriage, and Mrs. Medlock cheered up very much over her tea and chicken and beef.  She ate a great deal and afterward fell asleep herself, and Mary sat and stared at her and watched her fine bonnet slip on one side until she herself fell asleep once more in the corner of the carriage, lulled by the splashing of the rain against the windows.  It was quite dark when she awakened again.  The train had stopped at a station and Mrs. Medlock was shaking her.

“You have had a sleep!” she said.  “It’s time to open your eyes!  We’re at Thwaite Station and we’ve got a long drive before us.”

Mary stood up and tried to keep her eyes open while Mrs. Medlock collected her parcels.  The little girl did not offer to help her, because in India native servants always picked up or carried things and it seemed quite proper that other people should wait on one.

The station was a small one and nobody but themselves seemed to be getting out of the train.  The station-master spoke to Mrs. Medlock in a rough, good-natured way, pronouncing his words in a queer broad fashion which Mary found out afterward was Yorkshire.

“I see tha’s got back,” he said.  “An’ tha’s browt th’ young ’un with thee.”

“Aye, that’s her,” answered Mrs. Medlock, speaking with a Yorkshire accent herself and jerking her head over her shoulder toward Mary.  “How’s thy Missus?”

“Well enow.  Th’ carriage is waitin’ outside for thee.”

A brougham stood on the road before the little outside platform.  Mary saw that it was a smart carriage and that it was a smart footman who helped her in.  His long waterproof coat and the waterproof covering of his hat were shining and dripping with rain as everything was, the burly station-master included.

When he shut the door, mounted the box with the coachman, and they drove off, the little girl found herself seated in a comfortably cushioned corner, but she was not inclined to go to sleep again.  She sat and looked out of the window, curious to see something of the road over which she was being driven to the queer place Mrs. Medlock had spoken of.  She was not at all a timid child and she was not exactly frightened, but she felt that there was no knowing what might happen in a house with a hundred rooms nearly all shut up—­a house standing on the edge of a moor.