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The sun rose gloriously golden, dispelling the stubborn mist with an army
of riotous sunbeams, that danced and shimmered over the waves in wild
defiance of threatening wind and lowering sky. The decks and railings of
the steamer, still wet from the clinging mist, shone and gleamed and
sparkled in the sun like one gigantic diamond. Even the sailors sang as
they worked, and one of them went so far as to attempt a sailor's
hornpipe on the slippery deck, to the great amusement of his mates.
The girls had slept but little during the long night, and even when, from
sheer exhaustion, they had dropped off into a troubled doze, weird,
distorted fancies came to torment them into wakefulness, to stare,
wide-eyed and fearful, into the inky blackness of the cabin.
So it was that, with the first streak of dawn, Lucile, who had been able
to lie still no longer, softly rose, fearing to awake the others, and
began to dress.
"I'm glad you are up, Lucy. I haven't slept all night," whispered Jessie,
and the dark circles under her eyes bore unmistakable testimony to the
truth of what she said. "I was afraid to get up for fear of waking
Evelyn."
"You needn't have worried," and Evelyn, who had been lying with her face
to the wall, turned over wearily. "I've been afraid to sleep--oh, girls,
I've had such awful dreams!" And she covered her face with her hands to
keep out the memory.
"We'll all feel better when we get on deck," Lucile prophesied,
hopefully. "Don't let's talk so loud; Mother is asleep."
"No, I'm not," said a tired, fretful voice from the lower berth. "As soon
as you girls get through, I'll get up."
It seemed to the girls that morning as though they would never finish
dressing. Their clothes, their hairpins, even their combs and brushes,
evaded them with demoniacal persistence, hiding under things, falling
under the berths, rolling into corners, and otherwise misbehaving
themselves, until the girls' nerves were all on edge and they were
dangerously near the verge of tears.
It was Lucile's undying sense of humor that finally saved the day.
"I feel just like the Prince in the Prince and the Pauper, when the rat
made a bed of him," she said. "Things can't be any worse, so it stands to
reason they've got to get better."
"Let's hope so, anyway," said Evelyn, halfway between laughter and tears.
"I feel just now as though I'd like to hit somebody."
"I guess it's time we left, then," laughed Lucile, and, suiting the
action to the word, she opened the door and stepped outside, the others
following.
"If I look the way I feel, I must be a sight," moaned Jessie. "I hope the
boys aren't on deck."
"Girls, look!" cried Lucile, pointing dramatically to the shaft of
sunlight filtering through the companionway. "The sun, the blessed old
sun--it's out!"
"Wonder of wonders!" cried Jessie, as they rushed up the steep steps.
"Let's go look."
The sunshine fell on them in a warm, life-giving flood. It brought out
the luster in their hair; it gleamed in their eyes; it sent the warm
color tingling to their faces; it made them want to sing, to dance, to
shout with gladness.
"Oh to think that we were growling! To think that we dared to be
down-hearted when this was waiting for us!" cried Lucile, joyfully. "We
don't deserve our blessings."
"Of course you don't," said a cheerful voice behind them. "How's this for
a day?"
"That's just what we've been raving about," said Jessie, as she hugged
her cousin ecstatically.
"Hey, look out, young lady!" cautioned Jack, gaily. "Not everybody on
board knows we're related, remember."
"Well, what they don't know won't hurt them," she retorted. "Besides, I'd
hug the ship's cook to-day if he happened to be anywhere around."
"I'm flattered!" laughed Jack, just as Phil greeted him with a bang on
the shoulder that Lucile declared could be heard in the galley.
"Say, let's play 'ring around a rosy,'" he suggested. "We've got to do
something to celebrate."
"How exciting!" Jessie began, but before she could utter further protest
she was jerked into the circle and was soon whirling round madly with the
rest until they had to stop from exhaustion and laughter.
"It's good we stopped just when we did," said Lucile, peeping around a
corner of the cabin. "I see old lady Banks in the distance. 'Pray, and
may I inquire the cause of all this frivolity?'" and she imitated the old
lady so perfectly that they went off into gales of laughter.
"You've sure missed your vocation, Lucile," said Jack, when they stopped
to breathe.
"That's what we all tell her," agreed Evelyn. "In Burleigh----"
"Doesn't it make me homesick, just to think of it!" exclaimed Jessie.
"You haven't long to wait now," cried Lucile, springing to her feet and
searching the sky-line as though she hoped to see beyond it. "A few hours
more, and--the harbor!"
Great crowds thronged the deck of the steamer. It had been announced that
fifteen minutes more would bring them in sight of land--their land. Eyes,
old and young, were straining for that first glimpse of a country never
so dear to them as now.
"There it is! It's there, it's there!" came in excited tones from
different parts of the deck, the shrill tones of women and children
mingling with the deeper voices of men.
"Yes, now you can see it," Mr. Payton was saying. "That tiny
speck--that's America."
The word sped like magic through the crowd, breaking the tension. They
all went mad with joy. Men shook hands with perfect strangers; women
hugged each other, murmuring incoherently, and mothers gathered their
little ones to them, weeping openly.
"Hello, Lucy; that you? Where did you go, anyway?" said Jessie,
surreptitiously wiping her eyes. "I was looking for you all over."
"Oh, just around," Lucile answered, waving her hand vaguely,
"congratulating everybody. Did you ever see such a wonderful time in all
your life, Jessie? One little chap over there, who is crazy to see his
father, asked what the noise was all about. 'Is it because I'm going to
see Daddy?' he asked, and when his mother couldn't answer him, she was
crying so, he put his little face against hers and begged her not to.
'It's just because I'm happy, little lad; so happy,' she said,
and--and--oh, why is it that when you're happiest, you have to go and
cry?" And she dashed the tears away fiercely.
Some hours later the crowd again assembled on deck, everything in
readiness to land. The beautiful city towered, majestic and imposing,
before them, and the lofty buildings, with the sun full upon them, stood
out clear and gleaming against the gray-blue of the sky.
The girls, who had been standing close together, drew a sigh and turned
to each other with tear-wet eyes and bursting hearts.
"Well, girls, have you got any luggage?" came in Phil's matter-of-fact
voice. "If you have, hand it over."
"I'll take Lucile's," said Jack, and, as she suited the action to the
word, he cried joyfully, "We're home, Lucile; we're home!"
And Mr. Payton, regarding the little group with loving eyes, added, very
reverently, "Thank God!"
Transcriber's Notes:
Illustrations have been moved where necessary so that they are not
in the middle of a paragraph.
Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved as
printed, along with the author's punctuation style, except as
noted below [the correction is enclosed in brackets].
Minor punctuation errors have been corrected without note.
Pg. 10: she had reigned supreme in the girl's [girls'] warm hearts
Pg. 19: had set the spring world-free.[world free.]
Pg. 21: cried Evelyn, hugging Lucile so esctatically [ecstatically]
Pg. 21: All right; wait a minute," same [came] the voice
Pg. 26: You have probably as much as any of us, and you can [can't]
Pg. 42: themselves on the floor at her feet, while other [others] were
Pg. 75: Why, its [it's] just as complete and comfortable
Pg. 84: But I trangress, [transgress,] "he interrupted himself,
Pg. 87: The chauteau [chateau] where she lived
Pg. 88: while I was still stunned and stupified [stupefied]
Pg. 90: know far too much for your piece [peace] of mind
Pg. 93: steady travel would bring Monsieur to the chauteau [chateau]
Pg. 97: reasons for our search, Monsieur,' and [said] my big friend
Pg. 98: good dinner and a bottle or two of choice Maderia [Madeira]
Pg. 98: he had made a flying visit to a little chauteau [chateau]
Pg. 117: subject always to the slightly [slightest] word or wish of
Pg. 130: "You musn't [mustn't] be too hard
Pg. 133: with its dancing eyes and mischevious [mischievous] mouth,
Pg. 149: from which the sweet notes had seem [seemed] to come.
Pg. 149: five feet away, swaying periliously [perilously] on a slender
Pg. 152: Lucille [Lucile] regarded the speaker soberly
Pg. 153: It is Jeannette [Jeanette] Renard.
Pg. 161: from one to the other in a very esctasy [ecstasy] of reunion
Pg. 162: Yes, we promse [promise] not to interrupt
Pg. 163: think you could find Henri Charloix for Jeannette [Jeanette]
Pg. 170: I'm sure I put them in ther [their] place,
Pg. 177: It doesn't make and [any] difference what you call it,
Pg. 180: I'll get a paper and see and see [removed 2nd "and see"]
Pg. 185: "Whih [Which] reminds me," said Phil,
End of Project Gutenberg's Lucile Triumphant, by Elizabeth M. Duffield