Page:Burnett - Two Little Pilgrims' Progress A Story of the City Beautiful.djvu/130

114 the warm, deep, splendid blueness of the summer sky.

It was so white—it was so full of the marvel of colour—it was so strange—it was so radiant and unearthly in its beauty!

The two children only stood still and gazed and gazed with widening eyes and parted lips. They could not have moved about at first; they only stood and lost themselves as in a dream.

Meg was still for so long that Robin, turning slowly to look at her at last, was rather awed.

"Meg!" he said, "Meg!"

"Yes," she answered in a voice only half awake.

"Meg! Meg! We are there!"

"I know," said Meg; "only it is so like—that other city—that it seems as if"— She gave a queer little laugh, and turned to look at him. "Rob," she said, "perhaps we are dead, and have just wakened up."

That brought them back to earth. They laughed together. No, they were not dead. They were breathless and uplifted by an ecstasy, but they had never been so fully alive before. It seemed as if they were in the centre of the world, and the world was such a bright and radiant beautiful place, as they had never dreamed of.