How could she care what she wore, or did, or used, if she was exiled from him! Then came the day when Mrs.Pike took her to her school and left her.
It was a wet, stormy day, and Kitty sat looking through the streaming windows at the rain-swept country with a heart as stormy.

But though everything looked old and worn, and as unbeautiful as the day itself, she gained some consolation from the sight.

"The next time I see them," she thought, gazing wistfully at the trees and houses, the bridges and fields, "I shall be going home! home! home!" "Yes, but thirteen long weeks must elapse first," came the next thought.
"But what are thirteen weeks ?" said the worn-looking objects cheeringly.

"Nothing! We have seen years pass by, and thirteen weeks are but so many moments, flying already." Then at last they reached their station, and their journey was over; but in all the years to come, never, never again would Kitty Trenire pass the long, ugly rows of squalid backs of houses just outside the station, and dull depressing streets, never again would she enter that station itself, without living through once more and tasting again the misery, the strangeness, the forlornness which filled her heart that afternoon.
She might come in the height of happiness, in the company of those she loved best, with hope and joy before and behind her, but never could the sight of it all, the smells, and the sounds, fail to bring back to Kitty memories of that supremely miserable day, and through any happiness make her taste again for a moment the forlornness, the black misery which swamped her as she first stood on that draughty, dingy platform.
There was a smart tussle with the porter over the getting out of Kitty's luggage, for Aunt Pike was one of those unfortunate persons who never fail to come to words with porter or cabman, who, in fact, rub every one the wrong way to start with by taking for granted that they are trying to shirk their duties and to cheat her.
Then came the inevitable tussle with the cabman as to the fare, during which Kitty glanced about her at the people on the platform, picking out with special interest those boys and girls who looked as though they also were going to school, and expending on them a great amount of pity which was probably in some cases quite wasted.
At last came the summons to "get in," and Kitty got into the musty old cab beside her aunt, and they were started on the last stage of their journey through rain-washed busy streets, where the people were hurrying along under umbrellas, or in omnibuses and cabs.

Now and then a cab laden with luggage would lumber past them on its way to the station, and Kitty's mind would follow the people inside it through a whole long chapter of imaginary happenings until something else passed and distracted her thoughts.
By-and-by they left the streets, and came to a quiet suburb, where road after road, lined on either side with houses exactly like each other, stretched in depressing monotony.