And then the train slid out of the station and Joey was off to the new world, and Mums was left behind.
That was the beginning of the long day's travelling down through Scotland, and now she was almost at Edinburgh, and the end. In a few minutes Miss Craigie would meet her--Miss Craigie, whom Joey saw as a replica of her brother, only in a coat and skirt--and she would be hearing all about Redlands, and learning what a new girl ought to know. Joey remembered from school stories that new girls need a lot of watching if they are not to begin their school career with unforgivable blunders. She was very thankful that she was going to travel with Miss Craigie.
She was also rather thankful that this day's journey was nearly over. She seemed to have sat still for such a long, long time. Mrs. Tresham had broken it a little for herself by going to the restaurant-car for lunch; but though she had pressed Joey most kindly to come with her as her guest, explaining that she hated meals alone, Joey stuck to it firmly that she preferred sandwiches, having her own private supply of family pride. She ate her sandwiches--potted shrimp and margarine--and the buns and the apples in solitude; they didn't take long--nothing like as long as Mrs. Tresham's lunch did.
The afternoon was very long, but tea-time came at last, and she had been told to have tea in the restaurant-car. She and Mrs. Tresham had it together, at a little table, fixed firmly to the floor; and there was hot, buttered toast and a sort of mongrel jam, and you had to pour the tea carefully because of the lurches of the train. Joey enjoyed that meal, and it was five o'clock by the time it was finished, and she and Mrs. Tresham had reeled back along the swaying corridor to their own compartment; and at six they were due at Edinburgh.
Joey tidied herself up and washed her hands even before the Forth Bridge was reached; she was so anxious to be ready in good time. And that wonderful engineering feat was crossed--with a certain thrilling and delightful sense of insecurity about the crossing--and Corstorphine Hill was passed, and the train was slipping into the Waverley Station. Edinburgh at last!
Joey was in the corridor in a second, looking for Miss Craigie. Of course it was not wonderful that she did not see her at once; the station was so big and the people so many. But even when she had got out, accompanied by the small suit-case containing her night-things, and by her new umbrella, and had stood quite a long time waiting and tiptoeing by the door of the compartment while Mrs. Tresham claimed the luggage for them both, still there was no sign of anyone who looked like Mr. Craigie's sister.