Hilary often remembered afterward, how much more comfortable the end of the journey was than she had expected--how Johanna lay at ease, with her feet in Elizabeth's lap, wrapped in Elizabeth's best woolen shawl; and how, when Selina's whole attention was turned to an ingenious contrivance with a towel and fork and Elizabeth's basket, for stopping the rain out of the carriage roof--she became far less disagreeable, and even a little proud of her own cleverness.

And so there was a temporary lull in Hilary's cares, and she could sit quiet, with her eyes fixed on the rainy landscape, which she did not see, and her thoughts wandering toward that unknown place and unknown life into which they were sweeping, as we all sweep, ignorantly, unresistingly, almost unconsciously, into new destinies.

Hilary, for the first time, began to doubt of theirs.

Anxious as she had been to go to London, and wise as the proceeding appeared, now that the die was cast and the cable cut, the old simple, peaceful life at Stowbury grew strangely dear.
"I wonder if we shall ever go back again, or what is to happen to us before we do go back," she thought, and turned, with a half defined fear, toward her eldest sister, who looked so old and fragile beside that sturdy, healthful servant girl.

"Elizabeth!" Elizabeth, rubbing Miss Leaf's feet, started at the unwonted sharpness of Miss Hilary's tone.
"There; I'll do that for my sister.