Maggie, replying to his question, reached what was for her the acme of enthusiasm. “Oh, well enough so far,” she said. “I don’t know how it’ll be when it comes night.”
Indeed, to all of them the journey was one that held the spirit of romance. It was an adventure that was altering the course and current of their lives, and because they were all embarked in it together and it was beginning so pleasantly they felt happy and hopeful concerning the outcome. Each river that they crossed, each town that they left behind, marked a stage in their progress toward romance—mysterious romance in the person of a poor blind man who waited for them eagerly, who had been their friend and helper and who now needed their friendship and help.
For two days they traveled; then in the middle of the afternoon—a warm, golden afternoon—their train drew into Boston. Nervousness overcame Mrs. Ives at this approach to the first crisis in her new life.
“Do you think Mr. Dean will be at the station with some one to meet us?” she asked David.
“I think very likely. He knows we’re arriving by this train.”
“Do you think I look all right, David?”
“You surely do. But it couldn’t make any difference if you didn’t.”
“That’s true. I keep forgetting. But anyway I always feel that, if I look all right, I shall be more likely to behave in a way that will make a good impression. And I do want to do that. Even though Mr. Dean can’t see me, he is sure to form some impression of me.”
“A nice shy little person that he’ll like the better the more he knows her—that’s the impression he’ll have of you. Yes, your face is clean, and your hat is straight, and your veil too.”
Nevertheless, it was an agitated little woman that, clinging to her elder son’s arm, was swept along the platform in the midst of the streaming crowd. She clutched him still more tightly when he cried, “I see him, mother! I see him!”