Won't I sit at the windows and see 'em go by!" Thursday, Friday, Saturday passed; Sunday began and ended in a rain-storm; Monday came like a dream, with warm, sweet winds, and dewdrops quivering in a blaze of unclouded light.

Like a dream it seemed to the girls to be hurrying away at five o'clock, from an unfinished breakfast, from Mrs.Breynton's gentle good-bye, Tom's valuable patronage and advice, and Winnie's reminder that he was five years old, and that to the candid mind it was perfectly clear that he ought "to go too-o-oo." Very much like a dream was it, to be walking on the platform at the station, in the tucked skirts and new brown feather; to watch the checking of the trunks and buying of the tickets, quite certain that they were different from all other checks and tickets; to find how interesting the framed railway and steamboat guide for the Continent, on the walls of the little dingy ladies' room, suddenly became,--at least until the pleasing discovery that it was printed in 1849, and gave minute directions for reaching the _Territory_ of California.
More like a dream was it, to watch the people that lounged or worked about the depot; the ticket-master, who had stood shut up there just so behind the little window for twenty years; the baggage-master, who tossed about their trunks without ever _thinking_ of the jewelry-boxes inside, and that cologne-bottle with the shaky cork; the cross-eyed woman with her knitting-work, who sold sponge-cake and candy behind a very small counter; the small boys in singularly airy jackets, who were putting pins and marbles on the track for the train to run over; the old woman across the street, who was hanging out her clothes to dry in the back yard, just as if it had been nothing but a common Monday, and nobody had been going to Washington;--how strange it seemed that they could all be living on and on just as they did every day! "Oh, just think!" said Gypsy, with wide open eyes.

"Did you ever?
Isn't it funny?
Oh, I wish they could go off and have a good time too." Still like a dream did it seem, when the train shrieked up and shrieked them away, over and down the mountains, through sunlight and shadow, by forest and river, past village and town and city, away like an arrow, with Yorkbury out of sight, and out of mind, and only the wonderful, untried days that were coming, to think about,--ah, who would think of anything else, that could have such days?
Gypsy made her entrance into Boston in a very _distingue_ style.

It chanced that just after they left Fitchburg, she espied the stone pier of an unfinished bridge, surmounted by a remarkable boy standing on his head.

Up went the car-window, and out went her own head and one shoulder, the better to obtain a view of the phenomenon.
"Look out, Gypsy," said her father uneasily.