She said 'yes,' but not 'thank you,' and went on, relieved that Mysie
did not offer to stay and help her, and yet rather offended at being
left alone, while all the others went their own way. She heard them
pattering and clattering, shouting and calling up and down the
passages, and then came a great silence, while they could be seen going
down the drive, some on foot, some in the pony-chaise or donkey-cart.

Her things had all been unpacked and put in order, and her room had a
very cheerful window. It was prettily furnished with fresh pink and
white dimity, and choice-looking earthenware, but to London eyes like
those of Dolores it seemed very old-fashioned and what she called
'poked up.' The paper was ugly, the chimney-piece was a narrow,
painting thing, of the same dull, stone-colour as the door and the
window-frame. And then the clear air, the perfect stillness, the
absence of anything moving in the view from the window gave the city-
bred child a sense of dreadful loneliness and dreariness as she sat on
the side of her bed, with one foot under her, gazing dolefully round
her, and in he head composing her own memoirs.

'Fully occupied with their own plans and amusements, the lonely orphan
was left in solitude. Her aunt knew not how her heart ached after the
home she had left, but the machine of the family went its own way and
trod her under its wheels.'

This was such a fine sentence that it was almost a comfort, and she
thought of writing it to Maude Sefton, but as she got up to fetch her
writing-case from the schoolroom, she saw that her books were standing
just in the way she did not like, and with all the volumes mixed up
together. So she tumbled them all out of the shelves on the floor, and
at that moment Mrs. Halfpenny looked into the room.