But fortunately for Portia, the train arrived at that moment.
From its windows, after only ten days, the country they traveled through already seemed less the property of winter. All the snow patches were gone, and the trees, especially the willows, showed a color of life in their twigs.
"It won't really be very long before we come back," Portia said, to comfort both herself and Foster. "It only seems long."
"That's just the same as being," Foster said.
[7]
Another Beginning
But at last it was June. At last school was over and summer, huge as an ocean, lay before them.
"September is forever away!" sang Portia, sitting on her suitcase to shut it. "Forever and ever and ever away!"
This time when they returned to the country, Gulliver went with them because they drove there. They drove in their own brand-new car: "Bought," as Mrs. Blake explained to Julian later, "by courtesy of the Sheraton octagonal drum table." She sighed when she said it: she had hated parting with the drum table. "But if we're going to have a house in the country miles from any town, we must have a car."