It was while he was thus engaged that five young girls and a young woman some years their senior got down from a coach to the railway platform where they stood gazing expectantly about them. The young women were dressed in tasteful blue serge suits with hats of the same material a sort of uniform the villagers decided and had not the station platform been too dark the eager spectators would have seen that the faces of the visitors were tanned almost to swarthiness.' (Excerpt from Chapter 1)