Three children and their mother move from a London villa to a cottage by a railway line after their father is taken away by two men who will not say why. Nesbit serialised it in 1905 and told the whole story from the children's side, so that the reader guesses at the disgrace before Bobbie reads the newspaper. The waving at the train, and what comes down the platform in the last chapter, have survived every adaptation. Ninety-nine plates of painting from 1759 to 1924, among them Lavery and Hubert Robert, gather the themes of childhood play, letters and distant shores that run beneath the railway line.
