Happie smiled a feeble smile. "I'm afraid I don't much care whether it has or not," she said. "I just happened to think of it."
"Don't apologize," returned Bob. "It's a comfort to have you beginning to sit up and take notice."
Jeunesse Dorée purred when one of the children peeped into his basket, according to his cheerful habit of responding with a song to any notice.
After a time the landscape arose from the dull level of its beginnings and began to put on beauty. The hills were showing their heads in the distance, with blue vaporous lights playing over them in the pale sunshine of the chill afternoon.
On they steamed, the grade perceptibly higher, until all the young folk were looking out of the windows, enjoying the barren beauty of the mountains in the early spring. Mrs. Scollard felt the benediction of space and quiet, her throbbing nerves grew more still as her eyes sought the horizon with the delight this beauty-loving woman always found in nature.
Miss Bradbury sat preternaturally stiff and straight looking at the scene, which was as new to her as to any of the others, with the approval of a proprietor.
"It's pretty here!" cried Polly, as the train rounded a curve. As she spoke the travelers felt its motion retard. It stopped, and the guard called out: "Crestville!" They had arrived.