“Good-bye! Good luck to you! I hope they’ll be nice!”
“If they aren’t, come straight to us in Devonshire!” Kitty called shrilly after the outgoing train.
Ruth laughed and waved her hand again. “I’ll wire for you to meet me, ” she called back.
Then as the train crept through the mazes of Southampton and gathered speed for its rush to town, she sank back in her corner and faced the new future.
Her dream lasted almost all the way to London. She had no wish to read and did not want any one to talk to. Things, real things that were still happening, were too interesting; the possibilities too great.
She had come face to face with the unknown future that morning, when the first glimpse of England came in sight. Escaping from Mrs. Gordon and Kitty, who had been so good to her on the voyage, she had hung over the side and gazed enthralled at England, as England became real; England, that she had dreamed of all her life, out there on the African farm. It was everybody’s dream to go “home, ” to see England. Her mind was full of pictures of England, most of them wrong, she expected. But right or wrong, she was longing to be there.