Sally did not reply. The prospect was too distressing. But she was happily so constituted as to be grateful for present joys and pleasures, and she dismissed Rosemary Lane from her thoughts. Her one fear was that she would wake up.
"Do you like the noise the sea makes?" she inquires of her idol, when they were in bed again.
"It's beautiful," said the Duchess. "Are the ships there?"
Sally never hesitated to impart information on subjects of which she was ignorant.
"They're there," she said, "but they don't move till daylight comes."
"I'm sleepy," said the Duchess, with a yawn.
"I'm frightened to go to sleep," said Sally, battling with fatigue; "I want to be like this always. I hope it ain't a dream--oh, I hope it ain't a dream!"
Before she had finished, the Duchess was asleep.
"I'll pinch myself hard," thought Sally, "as hard as I can, and if there's a black-and-blue mark on my arm to-morrow morning, I shall know it's real."
Sally did pinch herself--so hard that she could not help crying out with the pain, but she obtained her reward on the following morning, when she saw the black-and-blue marks. The joy of the day, however, was so great that as she sat on the pebbly beach, watching the waves creep up and the ships and fishing-boats floating away into wonderland, she found it hard to convince herself that she was not dreaming. At the end of the week she said to Seth: