"My dear," said she, "it is really too late for any one to stay up any longer. My girls must go, and you too." So Hester jumped up, kissed her father good-night, and bade _au revoir_ to De Alcantara. Then she turned to section six, directed by the obsequious John. "Wait," said De Alcantara, "I have a surprise for you;" and he led her to number nine, where her immense Saratoga stood on the sofa. "If you need anything," said he, "you yourself have been careful that you will find it here." And he kissed his hand and walked forward. As Mr. Bryan was following, Mrs. Goole stopped him. Looking round to see that Hester had disappeared, she said,-- "Fergus, that girl of yours doesn't mean to be married to-morrow." "How do you know that?" said old Bryan. "I can see it; I've been watching her," said Mrs. Goole. "You see that you have the forward section; I have the rear one. She won't pass me in the night, whatever she does at your end." "Do you mean to sit up all night?" said poor Bryan. "Of course I do, fool!" said his tender sister, "and that you shall sit up all night, too. If you don't, there'll be no wedding to-morrow." "Well," said Bryan, as his sister left him. He thought it over with a cigar on the front platform, and decided that his sister was right. So he worked his way back to her section, and found her there, sitting on the edge of the berth, as grim as a sentinel at Pompeii. "I'll do it," said he. "You'd better," said she. And so all night he sat on the edge of his berth and tried to read, and then took another cigar on the platform, and then back and forth, till his cigars were gone; but not a wink of sleep passed his eyes that night. As for Mrs. Goole, who shall say what passed in her vigils? Certain she was that on that night no one passed her but the two conductors and one brakeman. She was once startled at Chimborazo as a new black face appeared; but it was explained that there was a change of porters, and whether Mungo or John it mattered little to her. And so morning came. No, it is no business of mine to tell who slept and who did not; who dreamed, or what the dreams portended. Sunrise is sure, or well-nigh sure; and even in a sleeping-car morning comes. Mrs. Goole looked a little more scraggy and haggard than usual. The bridemaids did their best, in the way of toilet, in their somewhat limited dressing-room. Baltasar was radiant in a fresh paper collar,--the utmost that even wealth like his could produce, as one travelled forty miles an hour, on the morning of one's wedding-day. Mungo, the porter, "made up" the several sections one after another. From beds they became elegant sofas again, and only section six, Hester's section, was intact. Its heavy curtains hung as at midnight, secured half-way down, as one might see, by a heavy brooch which Baltasar himself had given her. "Let her sleep," said Lucy Lander. "Perhaps she did not sleep well at first. I did not."