Page:Silver Shoal Light.djvu/326

 "Don't make it up," he said.

"I'm not," she said. "They were there,—not destroyers, but real dreadnoughts,—the Atlantic Fleet, in fact. They all were signaling like mad (I know about 'blinkies' now!), and just as the 'bus passed, I could hear the bells strike some hour, I forget what."

"Do you mean that there are things like that, and places like that, in Town?" Garth demanded, sitting up straight. "There's nothing in the City where you and I went like that."

"What Quimpaug calls the City is a very different place from New York," said Joan. "No other city is like New York. Of course, it is not all Park and River; there are ugly things and crowded streets. But in a winter twilight almost all of it is beautiful."

"Is that where Mudder and I are going to live, when Fogger has to go?" Garth asked.

"Yes," said Joan, "I think so. I wish that I were going to live there this winter."

Garth subsided against her shoulder again.

"Perhaps I wouldn't mind that place much," he sighed. "Please tell me some more about it."

Joan did tell him more, so much more that they were both quite far away, in fancy, from