[CHAPTER XXVII.]
SUNNY DAYS.
IT was a hot day towards the end of July; and a fast train from London was speeding westwards, bearing among its passengers three young people going home for the holidays—namely, Celia and Eric Wallis, and Lulu Tillotson. The two girls had met Eric by arrangement at Paddington railway station, where they had had no time for conversation; but now, settled for the journey in a comfortable compartment which was not over-crowded, they found they could exchange confidences.
"Isn't it like a dream, Eric?" Celia said, as she sat by her brother's side, and glanced from him to Lulu opposite.
The boy smiled as he looked at her. She was prettier than ever, he thought, with her cheeks flushed to a deeper hue than usual, and her face aglow with excitement.
"Isn't what like a dream?" he asked, understanding perfectly all the while what she meant.
"Why, you know! That we're going to the Moat House again! That we shall see mother and Joy, and Uncle Jasper in the course of a few hours, now! To me it seems like a wonderful, wonderful dream, too good to be true."
"Oh, I can realize it all," Eric replied, laughing from pure light-heartedness. "It seems very real to me. How did you like spending the Easter holidays at school, Celia, by the way?"
"Not at all," she answered; "it was the most miserable time I ever spent in my life, and I was thinking of Joy all the while, longing to see her, to know from hour to hour how she was. Oh, I shall never forget it, never!"
"You may depend upon it I was not very happy, either," Eric said, earnestly. "I used to moon about by myself all day long, wondering what news I should hear."