For a moment, as she thought of them, sharing the pleasure of their Christmas stockings without her, a great wave of homesickness swept over her, and she lay back on the pillow with that miserable, far-away feeling that, of all things, makes one most desolate.
Then she heard the rapid "tick, tick, tick, tick," of the little watch, and was comforted.

She had not realized before that time could go so fast.

Now thirty seconds were gone; then sixty.

At this rate it could not be such a very long time before they would be packing their trunks to start home; so Joyce concluded not to make herself unhappy by longing for the family, but to get as much pleasure as possible out of this strange Christmas abroad.
That little watch seemed to make the morning fly.

She looked at it at least twenty times an hour.