She curled herself up on the seat, and put her head into the corner.
“If you lean against me, Rob,” she said, “it will be softer. We can take turns.”
They changed position a little two or three times, but they were worn out with the day’s work, and their walk, and the excitement, and the motion of the train seemed like a sort of rocking which lulled them. Gradually their muscles relaxed and they settled down, though, after they had done so, Meg spoke once, drowsily.
“Rob,” she said, “did you see that was our man?”
“Yes,” answered Rob, very sleepily indeed, “and he looked as if he knew us.”
* * * * * * * *
If they had been less young, or if they had been less tired, they might have found themselves awake a good many times during the night. But they were such children, and, now that the great step was taken, were so happy, that the soft, deep sleepiness of youth descended upon and overpowered them. Once or twice during the night they stirred, wakened for a dreamy, blissful moment by some sound of a door shutting, or a conductor passing through. But they were only conscious of a delicious sense of strangeness, of the stillness of the car full of sleepers, of the half-realized delight of feeling themselves carried along through the unknown country, and of the rattle of the wheels, which never ceased saying rhythmically, “We’re going—we’re going—we’re going!”
Ah! what a night of dreams and new, vague sensations, to be remembered always! Ah! that heavenly sense of joy to come, and adventure, and young hopefulness and imagining! Were there many others carried towards the City Beautiful that night who bore with them the same rapture of longing and belief; who saw with such innocent clearness only the fair and splendid thought which had created it, and were so innocently blind to any shadow of sordidness or mere worldly interest touching its white walls? And after the passing of this wonderful night, what a wakening in the morning, at the first rosiness of dawn, when all the other occupants of the car were still asleep, or restlessly trying to be at ease!
It was as if they both wakened at almost the same moment. The first shaft of early sunlight streaming in the window touched Meg’s eyelids, and she slowly opened them. Then something joyous and exultant rushed in upon her heart, and she sat upright. And Robin sat up too, and they looked at each other.
“It’s the Day, Meg!” said Robin. “It’s the Day!” Meg caught her breath.