'Then what's the use of it if you can't drink it?' said Mary. Then she suddenly began to jump about more excitedly than ever. 'Look! look!' she cried. 'Look at that funny thing with smoke coming out of it! How fast it goes! What is that?'
'That is a ship,' Sister Agatha explained. 'It takes people on long journeys.'
'Where does it take them?' asked Mary.
'To countries a long way off.'
'Farther than we've come to-day?' cried Mary.
'Yes,' said Sister Agatha, 'a great deal farther—to countries where there are all kinds of wonderful things to be seen.'
'Not more wonderful than there are here,' said Mary.
'No,' answered Sister Agatha; 'they only seem more wonderful because we are not used to them. Everything is wonderful, you know; only we become so accustomed to things we see every day that they don't seem wonderful any longer. Now there's nothing more wonderful than a little girl, unless it is a big girl.'
'Oh, I think there is!' said Mary. 'I think ships are much more wonderful, and the sea, and the ponies, and primroses, and Evangeline, and——'
'And tea!' exclaimed Sister Agatha. 'I am going to ring for it, and then, when you have had tea, it will be time to go to bed. Now,' she added, 'we will pull down the blind.'