We travelled second class. I thought it very comfortable, and it was very nice to have foot-warmers, which I had never seen before. My spirits rose steadily and even grandmamma's face had a pinky colour, which made her look quite young.
'I should like to travel like this for a week without stopping,' I said.
'I don't think you would,' she said. 'You will feel you have had quite enough of it by the time we get to London.'
And after an hour or two, especially when the short winter afternoon grew misty and dull, so that I could scarcely distinguish the landscape as we flew past, I began to agree with her.
'It will be quite dark when we get to Chichester Square,' said grandmamma. 'You must wait for your first real sight of London till to-morrow. I hope the weather will not be foggy.'
'Will there be flys at the station?' I asked, 'or did you write to order one?'
'No, dear, that would not be necessary. There are always lots of four-wheelers and hansoms. But Mr. Vandeleur is sending a footman to meet us and he will find us a cab.'
'Not in London. Their carriages and horses are in the country still for Mrs. Vandeleur. They will not be sent back to London till she comes.'
'I hope that won't be for a good long while,' I said to myself, rather unfeelingly, for I might have remembered that as soon as my cousin's wife was well enough she was to return. So her staying away long would mean her not getting well.
Their being away--for Mr. Vandeleur was not in London himself just then--was the part that pleased me the most of the whole plan. I thought it would be great fun to be alone in London with grandmamma, and I had been making lists of the things I wanted her to do and the places we should go to see. It never struck me that she could have any one or anything to think of but me myself!
It was quite dark when we arrived at Paddington Station, and long before then, as grandmamma had prophesied, I had had much more than enough of the railway journey at first so pleasant.
I was tired and sleepy. It all seemed very, very strange and confusing to me--the huge railway station, the dimly burning gas-lamps, the bustle, the lots of people. For, as I have to keep reminding you, there is scarcely ever nowadays a child who leads so quiet and unchangeful a life as mine had been. I felt in a dream. If I had been less tired in my body I daresay my mind and fancy would have been amused and excited by it all. As it was, I just clung to grandmamma stupidly, wondering how she kept her head, wondering still more, when I heard her suddenly talking to some one--who turned out to be Mr. Vandeleur's footman--how in the world she or he, or both of them, had managed to find each other out in the crowd!