“Let’s go down to Schuyler’s now and look at the bus,” proposed Mr. Randall ten minutes later.
“All right,” agreed his wife, laying aside her work and getting briskly out of her easy chair.
If Patricia had not been so absorbed in her own affairs she would certainly have wondered the next day what ailed her parents; for there was such an air of suppressed excitement about them that vented itself in significant glances and knowing smiles. The thrill of buying her ticket, however, made Patricia oblivious to all else.
“Why don’t you take a sleeper,” asked her mother, “and get a good rest on the way down? You’ve been up so late every night.”
“Nothing doing!” retorted Patricia decidedly. “When I travel I want my eyes wide open so I won’t miss a single thing.”
Her positive decision recurred to her three days later as she snuggled deep into her comfortable chair, with a sigh of satisfaction, a sigh which was unceremoniously cut short by a very big yawn. The farewells at the station had been exciting and gratifying, but yet something of a strain. Almost all of her crowd had assembled to see her off, bearing gifts of candy, fruit, books, and magazines; her mother had clung to her till the very last minute, and her father had fussed about time tables, porters, tips, and a dozen other things. It had seemed as if she were being torn into a dozen pieces trying to pay attention to everybody. Now the train was bearing her rapidly away from Dad and Mother and all the dear old friends toward a new life at Granard.
“Perhaps I’d have been wiser to have followed Mother’s suggestion about the sleeper,” she thought, as she tried to stifle another great yawn. “Maybe if I take a little nap now, I’ll feel fresh for the rest of the day.”
Turning her chair toward the window, and leaning back, her hands on the broad arms, she was almost immediately floating in a delicious sea of semi-unconsciousness which became deeper and deeper until she was completely lost to the world about her. After a while, however, a most persistent dream began to disturb her peaceful sleep, a dream about a soft grey kitten whose silky fur she kept stroking, stroking until her hand was tired; but yet she could not stop. After a time she began to realize that she was dreaming, and made a desperate effort to free herself from the world of sleep by closing her fingers sharply on the little animal’s neck and giving it a shove.
Then with a sudden start at some movement close to her she sat bolt upright and opened her eyes just in time to see a pair of long legs, the ankles clad in grey silk socks, hastily removing themselves from the ledge beside her chair.
“Good Heavens!” she thought, horror-stricken. “I do hope those weren’t the kitten!”