What was the train saying? Lying in the white berth, her brain still throbbing, her heart still beating fast, Honor tried to listen, tried to fit words to the rhythmic sound.
“Good luck! good luck!” That did not quite fit. “Clank-clank—good luck! clank—clank—buck up!”
Good-by, ah, good-by!
“On the Alp the grass is sweetest,
Li-u-o, my Queen!”
That went better, but still—
The locomotive found its stride; the train settled into a smooth rhythmic movement, which steadily, insensibly, straightened out the twisted nerves, quieted the throbbing brain, soothed, lulled, comforted.
“Tumpty tum, tumpty tum,
Tumpty, tumpty, tumpty tum!”
And as sleep came softly stealing, drawing her veil of quietness over the tired child, she murmured, half awake, half in slumber, the old, old words: