She was only a rosebud beauty of an English girl, her beauty heightened by the colour of distress, but to Paul the radiance of her person almost rivalled the wonder of her perfume.

It was his first meeting of a goddess face to face, and he surrendered his whole being in adoration.
In a few minutes the children were marched through the squalid streets, a strident band, to the dingy railway station, a grimy proletariat third-class railway station in which the sign "First Class Waiting Room" glared an outrage and a mockery, and were marshalled into the waiting train.

The wonderful experience of which Paul had dreamed for weeks--he had never ridden in a train before--began; and soon the murky environs of the town were left behind and the train sped through the open country.
His companions in the railway carriage crowded at the windows, fighting vigorously for right of place; but Paul sat alone in the middle of the seat, unmoved by the new sensation and speed, and by the glimpses of blue sky and waving trees above the others' heads.

The glory of the day was blotted out until he should see and smell the goddess again.

At the wayside station where they descended he saw her in the distance, and the glory came once more.