For she was completely unaware that in her excitement she had given Timothy that kiss.
His spirits went clear to zero, but fortune spared him the necessity of a reply, for the conductor called another raucous signal, and the train began to move. Timothy had barely time to save himself from being carried off.
Arethusa stuck her head out of the car window, regardless of one of Miss Eliza's very last and most positive instructions, and waved and waved to the ones she had left behind on the Vandalia platform, and she kept on waving long after they had become mere indistinguishable specks as the train gathered speed.
Then she settled back against the luxury of her dusty red-plush seat with a soft little sigh.
The swift motion of the train was most exhilarating, for every single click of the car-wheels meant a turn which brought her just that much nearer to her father and Elinor and the wonderful Visit.
After a while, when her agitation had begun to subside a trifle, Arethusa began to remember a few of the multitude of directions Miss Eliza had given that were most important to be carried out without fail. She removed her hat with care and reached down into the ancient travelling bag and brought forth a piece of manila paper in which she wrapped it, to save its newness from flying cinders. She took off her coat and folded it, lining outside, and hung it over the arm of the opposite seat and rolled her white cotton gloves into a neat little ball and put them and her purse down into her bag.
Then she drew "The Dove in the Eagles' Nest" out of that capacious receptacle (Miss Asenath had advised bringing something to read and Arethusa had not read this particular romance for a very long while), propped herself primly way over in the corner of her seat and prepared to do just as she had been told.
But she was far too excited to do much more than just open her book. The fortunes of Christina and her two sons in the free city of Ulm, as so graphically portrayed by Miss Charlotte Yonge, could generally transport Arethusa far from the everyday events of her own world into the actual Middle Ages that was the scene of their happening; but to-day.... They seemed to have lost a lot of this power; she could hardly keep her eyes on the book.
The flying landscape outside the window fascinated her at first and after awhile her fellow travellers claimed her attention, and proved far more interesting than even that. Miss Eliza could have no possible objection to her niece watching them if she sat very still.
There were not very many passengers when Arethusa got on; one or two men in the other end of the car, and several women and babies. But as the tram rushed ever nearer to Lewisburg, the passengers increased in number.