CHAPTER V
MISS BARRINGTON COMES HOME
The long train was slackening speed and two whistles rang shrilly
through the roar of wheels when Miss Barrington laid down the book with
which she had beguiled her journey of fifteen hundred miles, and rose
from her seat in a corner of the big first-class car. The car was
sumptuously upholstered and its decorations tasteful as well as lavish,
but just then it held no other passenger, and Miss Barrington smiled
curiously as she stood, swaying a little, in front of the mirror at one
end of it, wrapping her furs about her. There was, however, a faint
suggestion of regret in the smile, and the girl's eyes grew grave
again, for the soft cushions, dainty curtains, gleaming gold and
nickel, and equable temperature formed a part of the sheltered life she
was about to leave behind her, and there would, she knew, be a
difference in the future. Still, she laughed again, as, drawing the
little fur cap well down upon her broad white forehead, she nodded at
her own reflection.
"One cannot have everything, and you might have stayed there and
reveled in civilization if you had liked," she said.
Crossing to the door of the portico she stood a moment with fingers on
its handle, and once more looked about her. The car was very cosy, and
Maud Barrington had all the average young woman's appreciation of the
smoother side of life, although she had also the capacity, which is by
no means so common, for extracting the most it had to give from the
opposite one.
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