They remained on the train until the very last minute; so the final good-bys consisted of hasty handclasps and promises to write.
Their last glimpse of the Boston station from the car window showed the three boys and Miss Ashton waving to them as the train pulled out. The girls were very quiet for a long time.
“Well,” sighed Jeanette, after the train had passed Worchester, “it’s over.”
“The actual trip itself,” replied Martha; “but perhaps there might be a sequel to it. Who knows?”
“Was it all you expected, Jane?” asked Nancy, rousing from a reverie.
“Yes, it was; and more than I anticipated, in some respects. What about you, Nan?”
“Oh, I loved it! Yet how soon even such a pleasant trip falls into the background. Nova Scotia seems to be so very far away already.”
“It is,” said the materialistic Martha. “Miles and miles.”
“It always seems a pity,” said Jeanette, “that we can’t enjoy the present more while we still have it, on trips especially. We are always looking forward to getting to the next place, or doing the next thing, and so lose the full joy of what we are doing at the time. As our friend Horace says, ‘Carpe diem.’”
“There was a lot of good sense in his poems, if he was a bit gloomy,” said Martha, as if she were announcing some hitherto unknown truth; and she wondered why the girls laughed.