We had run up and down and stood on our feet about three times as much as need was; we had talked and laughed and shaken ourselves incessantly; we had put out our heads in the wind and sun as the train flew on; we had tried to waltz between the seats, and had eaten two ounces of "mixed sweets" given us by the housemaid, and deluged each other with some very heavy-scented perfume belonging to one of us.
After all this, Eleanor and I felt tired before our journey had begun.
We felt faint, sick, anything but hungry, and should probably have travelled north in rather a pitiful plight, had not a motherly-looking lady, who sat in the waiting-room reading a very dirty book of tracts--and who had witnessed both our noisy parting from our companions and the subsequent collapse--advised us to go to the refreshment-room and get some breakfast.

We yielded at last, out of complaisance towards her, and were rewarded by feeling wonderfully refreshed by a solid meal.
We laid in a stock of buns and chocolate lozenges for future consumption, and--thanks to Eleanor's presence of mind and experience--we got our luggage together, and started in the north train in a carriage by ourselves.
We talked very little now.

Eleanor gazed out of her window, and I out of mine, in silence.

As we got farther north, Eleanor's eyes dilated with a curious glow of pride and satisfaction.

I had then no special attachment to one part of England more than another, but I had never seen so much of the country before, and it was a treat which did not lose by comparison with the limited range of our view at Bush House.
As we ran on, the bright, pretty, sociable-looking suburbs of London gave way to real country--beautiful, cared-for, garden-like, with grand timber, big houses, and grey churches, supported by the obvious parsonage and school; and deep shady lanes, with some little cart trotting quaintly towards the railway bridge over which we rushed, or boys in smock-frocks sitting on a gate, and shouting friendly salutations (as it seemed) to Eleanor and myself.