Sarah looked eagerly across the aisle. The girls were laughing and talking together as though they had not seen each other for a long time. They were tall and slender, and they were unlike any girls that Sarah's admiring eyes had ever seen. One had blonde curly hair, the other was dark, with wide, lovely eyes.
"Do you think I will know those girls?" she whispered.
"Of course you will. Those and many more."
Sarah clasped her hands happily. The stern and critical race with which she had peopled the Normal School suddenly ceased to exist, and lovely creatures like these took its place. Sarah's eyes brightened as she smoothed down her new blue dress. Then she sighed. The bothersome consciousness of her own unworthiness overwhelmed her.
"The Normal will have a hard time to make me look like them," she said to herself.
Once, long ago, when her mother and father were still alive, and the twins scarcely more than babies, the Wenners had taken a long holiday drive. One of the towns which they visited was that in which the Normal School was situated. It was then that her father promised that if Sarah studied, she should go there. She could see the school as plainly as though it were yesterday instead of eight weary years ago; she could hear her father's voice. Her recollection of the low house and the barn and the creek which they had left that morning was not more vivid. Before the train stopped, she saw the tall tower, which she remembered; she knew just how it overshadowed the other buildings. And there had been beautiful trees and tennis-courts and young people going back and forth.
She scrambled down from the train, and clung close to Laura, a little frightened by the noise and confusion about her, the loud greetings, the shouts of hackmen.
"This way to the Normal School. Take my carriage, lady!"
They picked their way round a great pile of trunks, and Laura gave Sarah's check to a baggage man. He touched his hat smilingly.
"Glad to see you back, Miss."