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If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Two Little Pilgrims’ Progress - A Story of the City Beautiful - -Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett - -Release Date: November 17, 2015 [eBook #50471] -[Most recently updated: June 22, 2021] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Stephen Hutcheson, Dave Morgan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWO LITTLE PILGRIMS’ PROGRESS *** - - - - -[Illustration: THEIR DREAM HAD COME TRUE.] - - - - - TWO LITTLE PILGRIMS’ PROGRESS - _A Story of the City Beautiful_ - - - BY - FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT - - NEW YORK - CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS - 1916 - - Copyright, 1895, 1897, by - CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS - - - - - LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - _FROM DRAWINGS BY REGINALD B. BIRCH_ - - - PAGE - Their dream had come true, Frontispiece - “Everything in the world,” said Robin, 15 - “Aunt Matilda,” she said, suddenly, 35 - Meg looked rather like a little witch, 67 - “Is this the train to Chicago?” said Robin, 79 - “You like a cup coffee?” she asked, 97 - “Now we are in Venice,” 111 - “Well, Jem!” she exclaimed, 121 - He was looking at her in an absent, miserable way, 127 - “To—to—the Fair?” he said, tremulously, 141 - “Take me with you,” 153 - “It’s a queer sight,” she said to John Holt, 195 - - - - - TWO LITTLE PILGRIMS’ PROGRESS - - - - - I - - -The sun had set, and the shadows were deepening in the big barn. The -last red glow—the very last bit which reached the corner the children -called the Straw Parlor—had died away, and Meg drew her knees up higher, -so as to bring the pages of her book nearer to her eyes as the twilight -deepened, and it became harder to read. It was her bitterest grievance -that this was what always happened when she became most interested and -excited—the light began to fade away, and the shadows to fill all the -corners and close in about her. - -She frowned as it happened now—a fierce little frown which knitted her -childish black brows as she pored over her book, devouring the page, -with the determination to seize on as much as was possible. It was like -running a desperate race with the darkness. - -She was a determined child, and no one would have failed to guess as -much who could have watched her for a few moments as she sat on her -curious perch, her cheeks supported by her hands, her shock of straight -black hair tumbling over her forehead. - -The Straw Parlor was the top of a straw stack in Aunt Matilda’s barn. -Robin had discovered it one day by climbing a ladder which had been left -leaning against the stack, and when he had found himself on the top of -it he had been enchanted by the feeling it gave him of being so high -above the world, and had called Meg up to share it with him. - -She had been even more enchanted than he. - -They both hated the world down below—Aunt Matilda’s world—which seemed -hideous and exasperating and sordid to them in its contrast to the world -they had lived in before their father and mother had died, and they had -been sent to their sole relation, who did not want them, and only took -them in from respect to public opinion. Three years they had been with -Aunt Matilda, and each week had seemed more unpleasant than the last. -Mrs. Matilda Jennings was a renowned female farmer of Illinois, and she -was far too energetic a manager and business woman to have time to spend -on children. She had an enormous farm, and managed it herself with a -success and ability which made her celebrated in agricultural papers. If -she had not given her dead brother’s children a home, they would have -starved or been sent to the poorhouse. Accordingly, she gave them food -to eat and beds to sleep in, but she scarcely ever had time to notice -them. If she had had time to talk to them, she had nothing to say. She -cared for nothing but crops and new threshing-machines and fertilizers, -and they knew nothing about such things. - -“She never says anything but ‘Go to bed,’ ‘Keep out of the way.’ She’s -not like a woman at all,” Meg commented once, “she’s like a man in -woman’s clothes.” - -Their father had been rather like a woman in man’s clothes. He was a -gentle, little, slender man, with a large head. He had always been poor, -and Mrs. Matilda Jennings had regarded him as a contemptible failure. He -had had no faculty for business or farming. He had taught school, and -married a school teacher. They had had a small house, but somehow it had -been as cosey as it was tiny. They had managed to surround themselves -with an atmosphere of books, by buying the cheap ones they could afford -and borrowing the expensive ones from friends and circulating libraries. -The twins—Meg and Robin—had heard stories and read books all the first -years of their lives, as they sat in their little seats by the small, -warm fireside. In Aunt Matilda’s bare, cold house there was not a book -to be seen. A few agricultural papers were scattered about. Meals were -hurried over as necessary evils. The few people who appeared on the -scene were farmers, who talked about agricultural implements and the -wheat market. - -“It’s such a bare place,” Robin used to say, and he would drive his -hands into the depths of his pockets and set his square little jaw, and -stare before him. - -Both the twins had that square little jaw. Neither of them looked like -their father and mother, except that from their mother they inherited -black hair. Robin’s eyes were black, but Meg’s were gray, with thick -black lashes. They were handsome little creatures, but their shocks of -straight black hair, their straight black brows and square little jaws, -made them look curiously unlike other children. They both remembered one -winter evening, when, as they sat on their seat by the fire, their -father, after looking at them with a half smile for a moment or so, -began to laugh. - -“Margaret,” he said to their mother, “do you know who those two are -like? You have heard me speak of Matilda often enough.” - -“Oh, Robert!” she exclaimed, “surely they are not like Matilda?” - -“Well, perhaps it is too much to say they are like her,” he answered, -“but there is something in their faces that reminds me of her strongly. -I don’t know what it is exactly, but it is there. It is a good thing, -perhaps,” with a queer tone in his voice. “Matilda always did what she -made up her mind to do. Matilda was a success. I was always a failure.” - -“Ah, no, Bob,” she said, “not a failure!” - -She had put her hand on his shoulder, and he lifted it and pressed it -against his thin cheek. - -“Wasn’t I, Maggie?” he said, gently, “wasn’t I? Well, I think these two -will be like Matilda in making up their minds and getting what they -want.” - -Before the winter was over Robin and Meg were orphans, and were with -Aunt Matilda, and there they had been ever since. - -Until the day they found the Straw Parlor it had seemed as if no corner -in the earth belonged to them. Meg slept on a cot in a woman servant’s -room, Robin shared a room with some one else. Nobody took any notice of -them. - -“When any one meets us anywhere,” Meg said, “they always look surprised. -Dogs who are not allowed in the house are like us. The only difference -is that they don’t drive us out. But we are just as much in the way.” - -“I know,” said Robin; “if it wasn’t for you, Meg, I should run away.” - -“Where?” said Meg. - -“Somewhere,” said Robin, setting his jaw; “I’d find a place.” - -“If it wasn’t for you,” said Meg, “I should be so lonely that I should -walk into the river. I wouldn’t stand it.” It is worth noticing that she -did not say “I _could_ not stand it.” - -But after the day they found the Straw Parlor they had an abiding-place. -It was Meg who preëmpted it before she had been on the top of the stack -five minutes. After she had stumbled around, looking about her, she -stopped short, and looked down into the barn. - -“Robin,” she said, “this is another world. We are miles and miles away -from Aunt Matilda. Let us make this into our home—just yours and -mine—and live here.” - -“We are in nobody’s way—nobody will even know where we are,” said Robin. -“Nobody ever asks, you know. Meg, it will be just like our own. We will -live here.” And so they did. On fine days, when they were tired of -playing, they climbed the ladder to rest on the heap of yellow straw; on -wet days they lay and told each other stories, or built caves, or read -their old favorite books over again. The stack was a very high one, and -the roof seemed like a sort of big tent above their heads, and the barn -floor a wonderful, exaggeratedly long, distance below. The birds who had -nests in the rafters became accustomed to them, and one of the -children’s chief entertainments was to lie and watch the mothers and -fathers carry on their domestic arrangements, feeding their young ones, -and quarrelling a little sometimes about the way to bring them up. The -twins invented a weird little cry, with which they called each other, if -one was in the Straw Parlor and the other one entered the barn, to find -out whether it was occupied or not. They never mounted to the Straw -Parlor, or descended from it, if any one was within sight. This was -their secret. They wanted to feel that it was very high, and far away -from Aunt Matilda’s world, and if any one had known where they were, or -had spoken to them from below, the charm would have been broken. - -This afternoon, as Meg pored over her book, she was waiting for Robin. -He had been away all day. At twelve years old Robin was not of a light -mind. When he had been only six years old he had had serious plans. He -had decided that he would be a great inventor. He had also decided—a -little later—that he would not be poor, like his father, but would be -very rich. He had begun by having a savings bank, into which he put -rigorously every penny that was given to him. He had been so quaintly -systematic about it that people were amused, and gave him pennies -instead of candy and toys. He kept a little banking book of his own. If -he had been stingy he would have been a very unpleasant little boy, but -he was only strict with himself. He was capable of taking from his -capital to do the gentlemanly thing by Meg at Christmas. - -“He has the spirit of the financier, that is all,” said his father. - -Since he had been with Aunt Matilda he had found opportunities to earn a -trifle rather frequently. On the big place there were small, troublesome -duties the farm hands found he could be relied on to do, which they were -willing to pay for. They found out that he never failed them. - -“Smart little chap,” they said; “always up to time when he undertakes a -thing.” - -To-day he had been steadily at work under the head man. Aunt Matilda had -no objection to his odd jobs. - -“He has his living to earn, and he may as well begin,” she said. - -So Meg had been alone since morning. She had only one duty to perform, -and then she was free. The first spring they had been with Aunt Matilda -Robin had invested in a few chickens, and their rigorous care of them -had resulted in such success that the chickens had become a sort of -centre of existence to them. They could always have any dreams of the -future upon the fortune to be gained by chickens. You could calculate on -bits of paper about chickens and eggs until your head whirled at the -magnitude of your prospects. Meg’s duty was to feed them, and show them -scrupulous attentions when Robin was away. - -After she had attended to them she went to the barn, and, finding it -empty, climbed up to the Straw Parlor with an old “Pilgrim’s Progress,” -to spend the day. - - -This afternoon, when the light began to redden and then to die away, she -and Christian were very near the gates. She longed so to go in with him, -and was yearning towards them with breathless eagerness, when she heard -Robin’s cry below, coming up from the barn floor. - -She sprang up with a start, feeling bewildered a second, before she -answered. The City Beautiful was such millions—such millions of miles -away from Aunt Matilda’s barn. She found herself breathing quickly and -rubbing her eyes, as she heard Robin hurrying up the ladder. - -Somehow she felt as if he was rather in a hurry, and when his small, -black shock head and wide-awake black eyes appeared above the straw she -had a vague feeling that he was excited, and that he had come from -another world. He clambered on to the stack and made his way to her, and -threw himself full length on the straw at her side. - -“Meg!” he said—“Hallo, you look as if you were in a dream! Wake -up!—Jones and Jerry are coming to the barn—I hurried to get here before -them; they’re talking about something I want you to hear—something new! -Wake up!” - -“Oh, Robin!” said Meg, clutching her book and coming back to earth with -a sigh, “I don’t want to hear Jones and Jerry. I don’t want to hear any -of the people down there. I’ve been reading the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ -and I do wish—I do so _wish_ there _was_ a City Beautiful.” - -Robin gave a queer little laugh. He really was excited. - -“There is going to be one,” he said. “Jones and Jerry don’t really know -it, but it is something like that they are talking about; a City -Beautiful—a real one—on this earth, and not a hundred miles away. Let’s -get near the edge and listen.” - - - - - II - - -They drew as near to the edge as they could without being seen. They did -not understand in the least. Robin was not given to practical jokes, but -what he had said sounded rather as if there was a joke somewhere. But -she saw Jones and Jerry enter the barn, and saw, before they entered, -that they were deep in talk. It was Jones who was speaking. Jones was -Aunt Matilda’s head man, and was an authority on many things. - -“There’s been exhibitions and fairs all over the world,” he was saying, -“but there’s been nothing like what this will be. It will be a city, -that’s what it will be, and all the world is going to be in it. They are -going to build it fronting on the water, and bank the water up into -lakes and canals, and build places like white palaces beside them, and -decorate the grounds with statues and palms and flowers and fountains, -and there’s not a country on earth that won’t send things to fill the -buildings. And there won’t be anything a man can’t see by going through -’em. It’ll be as good as a college course to spend a week there.” - -Meg drew a little closer to Robin in the straw. - -“What are they talking about?” she whispered. - -“Listen,” said Bob. - -Jerry, who was moving about at some work below, gave a chuckling laugh. - -“Trust ’em to do the biggest thing yet, or bust, them Chicago people,” -he said. “It’s got to be the biggest thing—a Chicago Fair.” - -“It’s not goin’ to be the Chicago Fair,” Jones said. “They’re not goin’ -to put up with no such idea as that; it’s the World’s Fair. They’re -going to ring in the universe.” - -“That’s Chicago out an’ out,” said Jerry. “Buildin’s twenty stories -high, an’ the thermometer twenty-five degrees below zero, an’ a World’s -Fair. Christopher Columbus! I’d like to see it!” - -“I bet Christopher Columbus would like to see it,” said Jones. “It’s out -of compliment to him they’re getting it up—for discovering Chicago.” - -“Well, I didn’t know he made his name that way partic’lar,” said Jerry. -“Thought what he prided hisself on was discoverin’ America.” - -“Same thing,” said Jones, “same thing! Wouldn’t have had much to blow -about, and have statues set up, and comic operas written about him, if -it had only been America he’d discovered. Chicago does him full credit, -and she’s goin’ to give him a send-off that’ll be a credit to her.” - -Robin smothered a little laugh in his coat-sleeve. He was quite used to -hearing jokes about Chicago. The people in the country round it were -enormously proud of it, and its great schemes and great buildings and -multi-millionaires, but those who were given to jokes had the habit of -being jocular about it, just as they had the habit of proclaiming and -dwelling upon its rush and wealth and enterprise. But Meg was not a -jocular person. She was too intense and easily excited. She gave Robin -an impatient nudge with her elbow, not in reproof, but as a sort of -irrepressible ejaculation. - -“I wish they wouldn’t be funny,” she exclaimed. “I want them to tell -more about it. I wish they’d go on.” - -But they did not go on; at least, not in any way that was satisfactory. -They only remained in the barn a short time longer, and they were busy -with the work they had come to do. Meg craned her neck and listened, but -they did not tell more, and she was glad when they went away, so that -she could turn to Robin. - -“Don’t you know more than that?” she said. “Is it true? What have you -heard? Tell me yourself.” - -“I’ve heard a lot to-day,” said Robin. “They were all talking about it -all the time, and I meant to tell you myself, only I saw Jones and Jerry -coming, and thought, perhaps, we should hear something more if we -listened.” - -They clambered over to their corner and made themselves comfortable. -Robin lay on his back, but Meg leaned on her elbows, as usual, with her -cheeks resting on her hands. Her black elf-locks hung over her forehead, -and her big eyes shone. - -“Rob,” she said, “go on. What’s the rest?” - -“The rest!” he said. “It would take a week to tell it all, I should -think. But it’s going to be the most wonderful thing in the world. They -are going to build a place that will be like a white, beautiful city, on -the borders of the lake—that was why I called it the City Beautiful. It -won’t be on the top of a hill, of course——” - -“But if it is on the edge of the lake, and the sun shines and the big -water is blue and there are shining white palaces, it will be better, I -believe,” said Meg. “What is going to be in the city?” - -“Everything in the world,” said Robin. “Things from everywhere—from -every country.” - -“There are a great many countries,” said Meg. “You know how it is in the -geography. Europe, Asia, and Africa, as well as America. Spain and -Portugal and France and England—and Sweden and Norway and Russia and -Lapland—and India—and Italy—and Switzerland, and all the others.” - -“There will be things—and people—brought from them all. I heard them say -so. They say there will be villages, with people walking about in them.” - -[Illustration: “EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD,” SAID ROBIN.] - -“Do they walk about when they are at home?” exclaimed Meg. - -“Yes, in the queer clothes they wear in their own countries. There’s -going to be an Esquimaux village.” - -“With dogs and sledges?” cried Meg, lifting her head. - -“Yes; and you know that place in Italy where the streets are made of -water——” - -“It’s Venice,” said Meg. “And they go about in boats called gondolas.” - -“And the men who take them about are called gondoliers,” interrupted -Robin. “And they have scarfs and red caps, and push their boats along -with poles. There will be gondolas at the Fair, and people can get into -them and go about the canals.” - -“Just as they do in Venice?” Meg gasped. - -“Just as they do in Venice. And it will be the same with all the other -countries. It will be as if they were all brought there—Spanish places -and Egyptian places and German places—and French and Italian and Irish -and Scotch and English—and all the others.” - -“To go there would be like travelling all over the world,” cried Meg. - -“Yes,” said Rob, excitedly. “And all the trades will be there, and all -the machines—and inventions—and pictures—and books—and statues—and -scientific things—and wonderful things—and everything any one wants to -learn about in all the world!” - -In his excitement, his words had become so rapid that they almost -tumbled over each other, and he said the last sentence in a rush. There -were red spots on his cheeks, and a queer look in his black eyes. He had -been listening to descriptions of this thing all day. A new hand, hot -from the excitement in Chicago, had been among the workers. Apparently -he had heard of nothing else, thought of nothing else, talked of nothing -else, and dreamed of nothing else but the World’s Fair for weeks. -Finding himself among people who had only bucolic and vague ideas about -it, he had poured forth all he knew, and being a rather good talker, had -aroused great excitement. Robin had listened with eyes and ears wide -open. He was a young human being, born so full of energy and enterprise -that the dull, prosaic emptiness of his life in Aunt Matilda’s world had -been more horrible than he had been old enough to realize. He could not -have explained why it had seemed so maddening to him, but the truth was -that in his small, boyish body was imprisoned the force and ability -which in manhood build great schemes, and not only build, but carry them -out. In him was imprisoned one of the great business men, inventors, or -political powers of the new century. But of this he knew nothing, and so -ate his young heart out in Aunt Matilda’s world, sought refuge with Meg -in the Straw Parlor, and was bitterly miserable and at a loss. - -How he had drunk in every word the man from Chicago had uttered! How he -had edged near to him and tried not to lose him for a moment! How he had -longed for Meg to listen with him, and had hoarded up every sentence! If -he had not been a man in embryo, and a strong and clear-headed creature, -he would have done his work badly. But he never did his work badly. He -held on like a little bulldog, and thought of what Meg would say when -they sat in the straw together. Small wonder that he looked excited when -his black head appeared above the edge of the straw. He was wrought up -to the highest pitch. Small wonder that there were deep red spots on his -cheeks, and that there was a queer, intense look in his eyes, and about -his obstinate little mouth. - -He threw up his arms with a desperate gesture. - -“_Everything_,” he said again, staring straight before him, “that any -one could want to learn about—everything in all the world.” - -“Oh, Robin!” said Meg, in quite a fierce little voice, “and we—_we_ -shall never see it!” - -She saw Robin clinch his hands, though he said nothing, and it made her -clinch her own hands. Robin’s were tough, little, square-fingered fists, -brown and muscular; Meg’s hands were long-fingered, flexible, and -slender, but they made good little fists when they doubled themselves -up. - -“Rob,” she said, “we never see anything! We never hear anything! We -never learn anything! If something doesn’t happen we shall be -Nothings—that’s what we shall be—Nothings!” And she struck her fist upon -the straw. - -Rob’s jaw began to look very square, but he did not speak. - -“We are twelve years old,” Meg went on. “We’ve been here three years, -and we don’t know one thing we didn’t know when we came here. If we had -been with father and mother we should have been learning things all the -time. We haven’t one thing of our own, Rob, but the chickens and the -Straw Parlor—and the Straw Parlor might be taken away from us.” - -Rob’s square jaw relaxed just sufficiently to allow of a grim little -grin. - -“We’ve got the Treasure, Meg,” he said. - -Meg’s laugh had rather a hysterical sound. That she should not have -mentioned the Treasure among their belongings was queer. They talked so -much about the Treasure. At this moment it was buried in an iron bank, -deep in the straw, about four feet from where they sat. It was the very -bank Robin had hoarded his savings in when he had begun at six years old -with pennies, and a ten-cent blank-book to keep his accounts in. -Everything they had owned since then had been pushed and dropped into -it—all the chicken and egg money, and all Robin had earned by doing odd -jobs for any one who would give him one. Nobody knew about the old iron -bank any more than they knew about the Straw Parlor, and the children, -having buried it in the straw, called it the Treasure. Meg’s stories -about it were numerous and wonderful. Sometimes magicians came, and -multiplied it a hundred-fold. Sometimes robbers stole it, and they -themselves gave chase, and sought it with wild adventure; but perhaps -the most satisfactory thing was to invent ways to spend it when it had -grown to enormous proportions. Sometimes they bought a house in New -York, and lived there together. Sometimes they traded in foreign lands -with it. Sometimes they bought land, which increased in value to such an -extent that they were millionaires in a month. Ah! it was a treasure -indeed. - -After the little, low, over-strained laugh, Meg folded her arms on the -straw and hid her face in them. Robin looked at her with a troubled air -for about a minute. Then he spoke to her. - -“It’s no use doing that,” he said. - -“It’s no use doing anything,” Meg answered, her voice muffled in her -arms. “I don’t want to do this any more than you do. We’re so lonely!” - -“Yes, we’re lonely,” said Robin, “that’s a fact.” And he stared up at -the dark rafters above him, and at some birds who were clinging to them -and twittering about a nest. - -“I said I wished there was a City Beautiful,” Meg said, “but it seems to -make it worse that there is going to be something like it so near, and -that we should never get any nearer to it than a hundred miles.” - -Rob sat up, and locked his hands together round his knees. - -“How do you know?” he said. - -“How do I know?” cried Meg, desperately, and she lifted her head, -turning her wet face sideways to look at him. He unlocked his hands to -give his forehead a hard rub, as if he were trying either to rub some -thought out of or into it. - -“Just because we are lonely there _is_ use in doing things,” he said. -“There’s nobody to do them for us. At any rate, we’ve got as far on the -way to the City as the bottom of the Hill of Difficulty.” - -And he gave his forehead another rub and looked straight before him, and -Meg drew a little closer to him on the straw, and the family of birds -filled the silence with domestic twitters. - - - - - III - - -During the weeks that followed they spent more time than ever in their -hiding-place. They had an absorbing topic of conversation, a new and -wonderful thing, better than their old books, even better than the -stories Meg made when she lay on the straw, her elbows supporting her, -her cheeks on her hands, and her black-lashed gray eyes staring into -space. Hers were always good stories, full of palaces and knights and -robber chiefs and fairies. But this new thing had the thrill of being a -fairy story which was real—so real that one could read about it in the -newspapers, and everybody was talking about it, even Aunt Matilda, her -neighbors, and the work-hands on the farm. To the two lonely children, -in their high nest in the straw-stack, it seemed a curious thing to hear -these people in the world below talk about it in their ordinary, -everyday way, without excitement or awe, as if it was a new kind of big -ploughing or winnowing machine. To them it was a thing so beautiful that -they could scarcely find the words to express their thoughts and dreams -about it, and yet they were never alone together without trying to do -so. - -On wet, cheerless days, in which they huddled close together in their -nest to keep from being chilled, it was their comfort to try to imagine -and paint pictures of the various wonders until, in their interest, they -forgot the dampness of the air, and felt the unending patter of the -rain-drops on the barn roof merely a pleasant sort of accompaniment to -the stories of their fancies. - -Since the day when they had listened to Jones and Jerry joking, down -below them in the barn, Rob had formed the habit of collecting every -scrap of newspaper relating to the wonder. He cut paragraphs out of Aunt -Matilda’s cast-aside newspapers; he begged them from the farm-hands and -from the country store-keepers. Anything in the form of an illustration -he held as a treasure beyond price, and hoarded it to bring to Meg with -exultant joy. - -How they pored over these things, reading the paragraphs again and -again, until they knew them almost by heart. How they studied the -pictures, trying to gather the proportions and color of every column and -dome and arch! What enthusiast, living in Chicago itself, knew the -marvel as they did, and so dwelt on and revelled in its beauties! No one -knew of their pleasure; like the Straw Parlor, it was their secret. The -strangeness of their lives lay in the fact that absolutely no one knew -anything about them at all, or asked anything, thinking it quite -sufficient that their friendlessness was supplied with enough animal -heat and nourishment to keep their bodies alive. - -Of that other part of them—their restless, growing young brains and -naturally craving hearts, which in their own poor enough but still human -little home had at least been recognized and cared for—Aunt Matilda knew -nothing, and, indeed, had never given a thought to it. She had not -undertaken the care of intelligences and affections; her own were not of -an order to require supervision. She was too much occupied with her -thousand-acre farm, and the amazing things she was doing with it. That -the children could read and write and understood some arithmetic she -knew. She had learned no more herself, and had found it enough to build -her fortune upon. She had never known what it was to feel lonely and -neglected, because she was a person quite free from affections and quite -enough for herself. She never suspected that others could suffer from a -weakness of which she knew nothing, because it had never touched her. - -If any one had told her that these two children, who ate her plentiful, -rough meals at her table, among field-hands and servants, were neglected -and lonely, and that their dim knowledge of it burned in their childish -minds, she would have thought the announcement a piece of idle, -sentimental folly; but that no solid detail of her farming was a fact -more real than this one was the grievous truth. - -“When we were at home,” was Meg’s summing-up of the situation, “at least -we belonged to somebody. We were poor, and wore our clothes a long time, -and had shabby shoes, and couldn’t go on excursions, but we had our -little bench by the fire, and father and mother used to talk to us and -let us read their books and papers, and try to teach us things. I don’t -know what we were going to be when we grew up, but we were going to do -some sort of work, and know as much as father and mother did. I don’t -know whether that was a great deal or not, but it was something.” - -“It was enough to teach school,” said Robin. “If we were not so far out -in the country now, I believe Aunt Matilda would let us go to school if -we asked her. It wouldn’t cost her anything if we went to the public -school.” - -“She wouldn’t if we didn’t ask her,” said Meg. “She would never think of -it herself. Do you know what I was thinking yesterday? I was looking at -the pigs in their sty. Some of them were eating, and one was full, and -was lying down going to sleep. And I said to myself, ‘Robin and I are -just like you. We live just like you. We eat our food and go to bed, and -get up again and eat some more food. We don’t learn anything more than -you do, and we are not worth as much to anybody. We are not even worth -killing at Christmas.’” - -If they had never known any other life, or if nature had not given them -the big, questioning eyes and square little jaws and strong, nervous -little fists, they might have been content to sink into careless -idleness and apathy. No one was actively unkind to them; they had their -Straw Parlor, and were free to amuse themselves as they chose. But they -had been made of the material of which the world’s workers are built, -and their young hearts were full of a restlessness and longing whose -full significance they themselves did not comprehend. - -And this wonder working in the world beyond them—this huge, beautiful -marvel, planned by the human brain and carried out by mere human hands; -this great thing with which all the world seemed to them to be -throbbing, and which seemed to set no limit to itself and prove that -there was no limit to the power of human wills and minds—this filled -them with a passion of restlessness and yearning greater than they had -ever known before. - -“It is an enchanted thing, you know, Robin—it’s an enchanted thing,” Meg -said one day, looking up from her study of some newspaper clippings and -a magazine with some pictures in it. - -“It seems like it,” said Robin. - -“I’m sure it’s enchanted,” Meg went on. “It seems so tremendous that -people should think they could do such huge things. As if they felt as -if they could do anything or bring anything from anywhere in the world. -It almost frightens me sometimes, because it reminds me of the Tower of -Babel. Don’t you remember how the people got so proud that they thought -they could do anything, and they began to build the tower that was to -reach to heaven; and then they all woke up one morning and found they -were all speaking different languages and could not understand each -other. Suppose everybody was suddenly struck like that some morning -now—I mean the Fair people!” widening her eyes with a little shiver. - -“They won’t be,” said Rob. “Those things have stopped happening.” - -“Yes, they have,” said Meg. “Sometimes I wish they hadn’t. If they -hadn’t, perhaps—perhaps if we made burnt offerings, we might be taken by -a miracle to see the World’s Fair.” - -“We haven’t anything to burn,” said Rob, rather gloomily. - -“We’ve got the chickens,” Meg answered as gloomily, “but it wouldn’t do -any good. Miracles are over.” - -“The world is all different,” said Robin. “You have to do your miracle -yourself.” - -“It will be a miracle,” Meg said, “if we ever get away from Aunt -Matilda’s world, and live like people instead of like pigs who are -comfortable—and we shall have to perform it ourselves.” - -“There is no one else,” said Robin. “You see, there is no one else in -the world.” - -He threw out his hand and it clutched Meg’s, which was lying in the -straw near him. He did not know why he clutched it—he did not in the -least know why; nor did she know why a queer sound in his voice suddenly -made her feel their unfriendedness in a way that overwhelmed her. She -found herself looking at him, with a hard lump rising in her throat. It -was one of the rainy days, and the hollow drumming and patter of the big -drops on the roof seemed somehow to shut them in with their loneliness -away from all the world. - -“It’s a strange thing,” she said, almost under her breath, “to be two -children, only just twelve years old, and to be quite by ourselves in -such a big world, where there are such millions and millions of people -all busy doing things and making great plans, and none of them knowing -about us, or caring what we are going to do.” - -“If we work our miracle ourselves,” said Rob, holding her hand quite -tight, “it will be better than having it worked for us. Meg!”—as if he -were beginning a new subject—“Meg!” - -“What?” she answered, still feeling the hard lump in her throat. - -“Do you think we are going to stay here always?” - -“I—oh, Robin, I don’t know.” - -“Well, I do, then. We are _not_—and that’s the first step up the Hill of -Difficulty.” - - - - - IV - - -All their lives the children had acted in unison. When they had been -tiny creatures they had played the same games and used the same toys. It -had seemed of little importance that their belongings were those of a -boy and girl. When Robin had played with tops and marbles, Meg had -played with them too. When Meg had been in a domestic and maternal mood, -and had turned to dolls and dolls’ housekeeping, Robin had assumed some -masculine rôle connected with the amusement. It had entertained him as -much at times to be the dolls’ doctor, or the carpenter who repaired the -dolls’ furniture or made plans for the enlargement of the dolls’ house, -as it had entertained Meg to sew the flags and dress the sailors who -manned his miniature ships, and assist him with the tails of his kites. -They had had few playmates, and had pleased each other far better than -outsiders could have done. - -“It’s because we are twins,” Meg said. “Twins are made alike, and so -they like the same things. I’m glad I’m a twin. If I had to be born -again and be an _un_-twin I’m sure I should be lonely.” - -“I don’t think it matters whether you are a boy or a girl, if you are a -twin,” said Robin. “You are part of the other one, and so it’s as if you -were both.” - -They had never had secrets from each other. They had read the same books -as they grew older, been thrilled by the same stories, and shared in -each other’s plans and imaginings or depressions. So it was a curious -thing that at this special time, when they were drawn nearest to one -another by an unusual interest and sympathy, there should have arrived a -morning when each rose with a thought unshared by the other. - -Aunt Matilda was very busy that day. She was always busy, but this -morning seemed more actively occupied than usual. She never appeared to -sit down, unless to dispose of a hurried meal or go over some accounts. -She was a wonderful woman, and the twins knew that the most -objectionable thing they could do was not to remove themselves after a -repast was over; but this morning Meg walked over to a chair and firmly -sat down in it, and watched her as she vigorously moved things about, -rubbed dust off them, and put them in their right places. - -Meg’s eyes were fixed on her very steadily. She wondered if it was true -that she and Robin were like her, and if they would be more like her -when they had reached her age, and what would have happened to them -before that time came. It was true that Aunt Matilda had a square jaw -also. It was not an encouraging thing to contemplate; in fact, as she -looked at her, Meg felt her heart begin a slow and steady thumping. But, -as it thumped, she was getting herself in hand with such determination -that when she at last spoke her chin looked very square indeed, and her -black-lashed eyes were as nearly stern as a child’s eyes can look. - -“Aunt Matilda,” she said, suddenly. - -“Well?” and a tablecloth was whisked off and shaken. - -“I want to talk to you.” - -“Talk in a hurry, then. I’ve no time to waste in talk.” - -“How old were you when you began to work and make money?” - -Aunt Matilda smiled grimly. - -“I worked out for my board when I was ten years old,” she said. “Me and -your father were left orphans, and we had to work, or starve. When I was -twelve I got a place to wash dishes and look after children and run -errands, and I got a dollar a week because it was out in the country, -and girls wouldn’t stay there.” - -“Do you know how old _I_ am?” asked Meg. - -“I’ve forgotten.” - -“I’m twelve years old.” She got up from her chair and walked across the -room and stood looking up at Aunt Matilda. “I’m an orphan too, and so is -Robin,” she said, “and we have to work. You give us a place to stay in; -but—there are other things. We have no one, and we have to do things -ourselves; and we are twelve, and twelve is a good age for people who -have to do things for themselves. Is there anything in this house or in -the dairy or on the farm that would be worth wages, that I could do? I -don’t care how hard it is if I can do it.” - -If Aunt Matilda had been a woman of sentiment she might have been moved -by the odd, unchildish tenseness and sternness of the little figure, and -the straight-gazing eyes, which looked up at her from under the thick -black hair tumbling in short locks over the forehead. Twelve years old -was very young to stand and stare the world in the face with such eyes. -But she was not a woman of sentiment, and her life had been spent among -people who knew their right to live could only be won by hard work, and -who began the fight early. So she looked at the child without any -emotion whatever. - -“Do you suppose you could more than earn your bread if I put you in the -dairy and let you help there?” she said. - -“Yes,” answered Meg, unflinchingly, “I know I could. I’m strong for my -age, and I’ve watched them doing things there. I can wash pans and bowls -and cloths, and carry things about, and go anywhere I’m told. I know how -clean things have to be kept.” - -[Illustration: “AUNT MATILDA,” SHE SAID, SUDDENLY.] - -“Well,” said Aunt Matilda, looking her over sharply, “they’ve been -complaining about the work being too much for them, lately. You go in -there this morning and see what you can do. You shall have a dollar a -week if you’re worth it. You’re right about its being time that you -should begin earning something.” - -“Thank you, ma’am,” said Meg, and she turned round and walked away in -the direction of the dairy, with two deep red spots on her cheeks and -her heart thumping again—though this time it thumped quickly. - -She reached the scene of action in the midst of a rush of work, and -after their first rather exasperated surprise at so immature and -inexperienced a creature being supposed to be able to help them, the -women found plenty for her to do. She said so few words and looked so -little afraid that she made a sort of impression on them. - -“See,” she said to the head woman, “Aunt Matilda didn’t send me to do -things that need teaching. Just tell me the little things, it does not -matter what, and I’ll do them. I can.” - -How she worked that morning—how she ran on errands—how she carried this -and that—how she washed and scrubbed milk-pans—and how all her tasks -were menial and apparently trivial, though entirely necessary, and how -the activity and rapidity and unceasingness of them tried her -unaccustomed young body, and finally made her limbs ache and her back -feel as if it might break at some unexpected moment, Meg never forgot. -But such was the desperation of her indomitable little spirit and the -unconquerable will she had been born with, that when it was over she was -no more in the mood for giving up than she had been when she walked in -among the workers after her interview with Aunt Matilda. - -When dinner-time came she walked up to Mrs. Macartney, the manager of -the dairy work, and asked her a question. - -“Have I helped you?” she said. - -“Yes, you have,” said the woman, who was by no means an ill-natured -creature for a hard-driven woman. “You’ve done first-rate.” - -“Will you tell Aunt Matilda that?” said Meg. - -“Yes,” was the answer. - -Meg was standing with her hands clasped tightly behind her back, and she -looked at Mrs. Macartney very straight and hard from under her black -brows. - -“Mrs. Macartney,” she said, “if I’m worth it, Aunt Matilda will give me -a dollar a week; and it’s time I began to work for my living. Am I worth -that much?” - -“Yes, you are,” said Mrs. Macartney, “if you go on as you’ve begun.” - -“I shall go on as I’ve begun,” said Meg. “Thank you, ma’am,” and she -walked back to the house. - -After dinner she waited to speak to Aunt Matilda again. - -“I went to the dairy,” she said. - -“I know you did,” Aunt Matilda answered. “Mrs. Macartney told me about -it. You can go on. I’ll give you the dollar a week.” - -She looked the child over again, as she had done in the morning, but -with a shade of expression which might have meant a touch of added -interest. Perhaps her mind paused just long enough to bring back to her -the time when she had been a worker at twelve years old, and also had -belonged to no one. - -“She’ll make her living,” she said, as she watched Meg out of the room. -“She’s more like me than she is like her father. Robert wasn’t -worthless, but he had no push.” - -Having made quite sure that she was not wanted in the dairy for the time -being, Meg made her way to the barn. She was glad to find it empty, so -that she could climb the ladder without waiting. When she reached the -top and clambered over the straw the scent of it seemed delightful to -her. It was like something welcoming her home. She threw herself down -full length in the Straw Parlor. Robin had not been at dinner. He had -gone out early and had not returned. As she lay, stretching her tired -limbs, and staring up at the nest in the dark, tent-like roof above her, -she hoped he would come. And he did. In about ten minutes she heard the -signal from the barn floor, and answered it. Robin came up the ladder -rather slowly. When he made his way over the straw to her corner, and -threw himself down beside her, she saw that he was tired too. They -talked a few minutes about ordinary things, and then Meg thought she -would tell him about the dairy. But it appeared that he had something to -tell himself, and he began first. - -“I’ve been making a plan, Meg,” he said. - -“Have you?” said Meg. “What is it?” - -“I’ve been thinking about it for two or three days,” he went on, “but I -thought I wouldn’t say anything about it until—till I tried how it would -work.” - -Meg raised herself on her elbow and looked at him curiously. It seemed -so queer that he should have had a plan too. - -“Have you—tried?” she said. - -“Yes,” he answered, “I have been working for Jones this morning, and I -did quite a lot. I worked hard. I wanted him to see what I could do. And -then, Meg, I asked him if he would take me on—like the rest of the -hands—and pay me what I was worth.” - -“And what did he say?” breathlessly. - -“He looked at me a minute—all over—and half laughed, and I thought he -was going to say I wasn’t worth anything. It wouldn’t have been true, -but I thought he might, because I’m only twelve years old. It’s pretty -hard to be only twelve when you want to get work. But he didn’t, he -said, ‘Well, I’m darned if I won’t give you a show;’ and I’m to have a -dollar a week.” - -“Robin,” Meg cried, with a little gasp of excitement, “so am I!” - -“So are you!” cried Robin, and sat bolt upright. “_You!_” - -“It’s—it’s because we are twins,” said Meg, her eyes shining like lamps. -“I told you twins did things alike because they couldn’t help it. We -have both thought of the same thing. I went to Aunt Matilda, asked her -to let me work somewhere and pay me, and she let me go into the dairy -and try, and Mrs. Macartney said I was a help, and I am to have a dollar -a week, if I go on as I’ve begun.” - -Robin’s hand gave hers a clutch, just as it had done before, that day -when he had not known why. - -“Meg, I believe,” he said, “I believe that we two will always go on as -we begin. I believe we were born that way. We have to, we can’t help it. -And two dollars a week, if they keep us, and we save it all—we could go -almost anywhere—sometime.” - -Meg’s eyes were fixed on him with a searching, but half frightened -expression. - -“Almost anywhere,” she said, quite in a whisper. “Anywhere not more than -a hundred miles away.” - - - - - V - - -They did not tell each other of the strange and bold thought which had -leaped up in their minds that day. Each felt an unwonted shyness about -it, perhaps because it had been so bold; but it had been in each mind, -and hidden though it was, it remained furtively in both. - -They went on exactly as they had begun. Each morning Meg went to her -drudgery in the dairy and Robin followed Jones whithersoever duty led. -If the elder people had imagined they would get tired and give up they -found out their mistake. That they were often tired was true, but that -in either there arose once the thought of giving up, never! And they -worked hard. The things they did to earn their weekly stipend would have -touched the heart of a mother of cared-for children, but on Mrs. -Jennings’s model farm people knew how much work a human being could do -when necessity drove. They were all driven by necessity, and it was -nothing new to know that muscles ached and feet swelled and burned. In -fact, they knew no one who did not suffer, as a rule, from these small -inconveniences. And these children, with their set little faces and -mature intelligence, were somehow so unsuggestive of the weakness and -limitations of childhood that they were often given work which was -usually intrusted only to elder people. Mrs. Macartney found that Meg -never slighted anything, never failed in a task, and never forgot one, -so she gave her plenty to do. Scrubbing and scouring that others were -glad to shirk fell to her share. She lifted and dragged things about -that grown-up girls grumbled over. What she lacked in muscle and size -she made up in indomitable will power that made her small face set -itself and her small body become rigid as iron. Her work ended by not -confining itself to the dairy, but extended to the house, the -kitchen—anywhere there were tiresome things to be done. - -With Robin it was the same story. Jones was not afraid to give him any -order. He was of use in all quarters—in the huge fields, in the barn, in -the stables, and as a messenger to be trusted to trudge any distance -when transport was not available. - -They both grew thin but sinewy looking, and their faces had a rather -strained look. Their always large black eyes seemed to grow bigger, and -their little square jaws looked more square every day; but on Saturday -nights they each were paid their dollar, and climbed to the Straw Parlor -and unburied the Treasure and added to it. - -Those Saturday nights were wonderful things. To the end of life they -would never forget them. Through all the tired hours of labor they were -looked forward to. Then they lay in their nest of straw and talked -things over—there it seemed that they could relax and rest their limbs -as they could do it nowhere else. Mrs. Jennings was not given to sofas -and easy-chairs, and it is not safe to change position often when one -has a grown-up bedfellow. But in the straw they could roll at full -length, curl up or stretch out just as they pleased, and there they -could enlarge upon the one subject that filled their minds, and -fascinated and enraptured them. - -Who could wonder that it was so! The City Beautiful was growing day by -day, and the development of its glories was the one thing they heard -talked of. Robin had established the habit of collecting every scrap of -newspaper referring to it. He cut them out of Aunt Matilda’s old papers, -he begged them from every one, neighbors, store-keepers, work hands. -When he was sent on errands he cast an all-embracing glance ’round every -place his orders took him to. The postmaster of the nearest village -discovered his weakness and saved paragraphs and whole papers for him. -Before very long there was buried near the Treasure a treasure even more -valuable of newspaper cuttings, and on the wonderful Saturday nights -they gave themselves up to revelling in them. - -How they watched it and followed it and lived with it—this great human -scheme which somehow seemed to their young minds more like the scheme of -giants and genii! How they seized upon every new story of its wonders -and felt that there could be no limit to them! They knew every purpose -and plan connected with it—every arch and tower and hall and stone they -pleased themselves by fancying. Newspapers were liberal with -information, people talked of it, they heard of it on every side. To -them it seemed that the whole world must be thinking of nothing else. - -“While we are lying here,” Meg said—“while you are doing chores, and I -am scouring pans and scrubbing things, it is all going on. People in -France and in England and in Italy are doing work to send to it—artists -are painting pictures, and machinery is whirling and making things, and -everything is pouring into that one wonderful place. And men and women -planned it, you know—just men and women. And if we live a few years we -shall be men and women, and they were once children like us—only, if -they had been quite like us they would never have known enough to do -anything.” - -“But when they were children like us,” said Robin, “they did not know -what they would have learned by this time—and they never dreamed about -this.” - -“That shows how wonderful men and women are,” said Meg. “I believe they -can do _anything_ if they set their minds to it.” And she said it -stubbornly. - -“Perhaps they can,” said Robin, slowly. “Perhaps _we_ could do anything -we set our minds to.” - -There was the suggestive tone in his voice which Meg had been thrilled -by more than once before. She had been thrilled by it most strongly when -he had said that if they saved their two dollars a week they might be -able to go almost anywhere. Unconsciously she responded to it now. - -“If I could do anything I set my mind to,” she said, “do you know what I -would set my mind to first?” - -“What?” - -“I would set my mind to going to that wonderful place. I would set it to -seeing everything there, and remembering all I could hold, and learning -all there was to be learned—and I would _set it hard_.” - -“So would I,” said Robin. - -It was a more suggestive voice than before that he said the words in; -and suddenly he got up, and went and tore away the straw from the -burying-place of the Treasure. He took out the old iron bank, and -brought it back to their corner. - -He did it so suddenly, and with such a determined air, that Meg rather -lost her breath. - -“What are you going to do with the Treasure?” she asked. - -“I am going to count it.” - -“Why?” - -He was opening the box, using the blade of a stout pocket-knife as a -screwdriver. - -“A return ticket to Chicago costs fourteen dollars,” he said. “I asked -at the dépôt. That would be twenty-eight dollars for two people. Any one -who is careful can live on a very little for a while. I want to see if -we shall have money enough to _go_.” - -“To _go_!” Meg cried out. “To the Fair, Robin?” - -She could not believe the evidence of her ears—it sounded so daring. - -“Nobody would take us!” she said. “Even if we had money enough to pay -for ourselves, nobody would take us.” - -“Take!” answered Robin, working at his screws. “No, nobody would. What’s -the matter with taking ourselves?” - -Meg sat up in the straw, conscious of a sort of shock. - -“To go by ourselves, like grown-up people! To buy our tickets ourselves, -and get on the train, and go all the way—alone! And walk about the Fair -alone, Robin?” - -“Who takes care of us here?” answered Robin. “Who has looked after us -ever since father and mother died? Ourselves! Just ourselves! Whose -business are we but our own? Who thinks of us, or asks if we are happy -or unhappy?” - -“Nobody,” said Meg. And she hid her face in her arms on her knees. - -Robin went on stubbornly. - -“Nobody is ever going to do it,” he said, “if we live to be hundreds of -years old. I’ve thought of it when I’ve been working in the fields with -Jones, and I’ve thought of it when I’ve been lying awake at night. It’s -kept me awake many and many a time.” - -“So it has me,” said Meg. - -“And since this thing began to be talked about everywhere, I’ve thought -of it more and more,” said Rob. “It means more to people like us than it -does to any one else. It’s the people who never see things, who have no -chances, it means the most to. And the more I think of it, the more I—I -won’t let it go by me!” And all at once he threw himself face downward -on the straw, and hid his face in his arms. - -Meg lifted hers. There was something in the woful desperation of his -movement that struck her to the heart. She had never known him do such a -thing in their lives before. That was not his way. Whatsoever hard thing -had happened—howsoever lonely and desolate they had felt—he had never -shown his feeling in this way. She put out her hand and touched his -shoulder. - -“Robin!” she said. “Oh, Robin!” - -“I don’t care,” he said, from the refuge of his sleeves. “We _are_ -little when we are compared with grown-up people. They would call us -children; and children usually have some one to help them and tell them -what to do. I’m only like this because I’ve been thinking so much and -working so hard—and it does seem like an Enchanted City—but no one ever -thinks we could care about anything more than if we were cats and dogs. -It was not like that at home, even if we were poor.” - -Then he sat up with as little warning as he had thrown himself down, and -gave his eyes a fierce rub. He returned to the Treasure again. - -“I’ve been making up my mind to it for days,” he said. “If we have the -money we can buy our tickets and go some night without saying anything -to any one. We can leave a note for Aunt Matilda, and tell her we are -all right and we are coming back. She’ll be too busy to mind.” - -“Do you remember that book of father’s we read?” said Meg. “That one -called ‘David Copperfield.’ David ran away from the bottle place when he -was younger than we are, and he had to walk all the way to Dover.” - -“We shall not have to walk; and we won’t let any one take our money away -from us,” said Robin. - -“Are we going, really?” said Meg. “You speak as if we were truly going; -and it _can’t_ be.” - -“Do you know what you said just now about believing human beings could -do _anything_, if they set their minds to it? Let’s set our minds to -it.” - -“Well,” Meg answered, rather slowly, as if weighing the matter, “let’s!” - -And she fell to helping to count the Treasure. - - - - - VI - - -Afterwards, when they looked back upon that day, they knew that the -thing had decided itself then, though neither of them had said so. - -“The truth was,” Robin used to say, “we had both been thinking the same -thing, as we always do, but we had been thinking it in the back part of -our minds. We were afraid to let it come to the front at first, because -it seemed such a big thing. But it went on thinking by itself. That -time, when you said ‘We shall _never_ see it,’ and I said, ‘How do you -know?’ we were both thinking about it in one way; and I know I was -thinking about it when I said, ‘We are not going to stay here always. -That is the first step up the Hill of Difficulty.’” - -“And that day when you said you would not let it go by you,” Meg would -answer, “that was the day we reached the Wicket Gate.” - -It seemed very like it, for from that day their strange, unchildish -purpose grew and ripened, and never for an hour was absent from the mind -of either. If they had been like other children, living happy lives, -full of young interests and pleasures, it might have been crossed out by -other and newer things; if they had been of a slighter mental build, and -less strong, they might have forgotten it; but they never did. When they -had counted the Treasure, and had realized how small it was after all, -they had sat and gazed at each other for a while with grave eyes, but -they had only been grave, and not despairing. - -“Twenty-five dollars,” said Robin. “Well, that’s not much after nearly -six years; but we saved it nearly all by cents, you know, Meg.” - -“And it takes a hundred cents to make a dollar,” said Meg; “and we were -poor people’s children.” - -“And we bought the chickens,” said Robin. - -“And you have always given me a present at Christmas, Robin, even if it -_was_ only a little one. That’s six Christmases.” - -“We have eight months to work in,” said Robin, calculating. “If you get -four dollars a month, and I get four, that will be sixty-four dollars by -next June. Twenty-five dollars and sixty-four dollars make eighty-nine. -Eighty-nine dollars for us to live on and go to see all the things; -because we must see them all, if we go. And I suppose we shall have to -come back”—with a long breath. - -“Oh, dear!” cried Meg, “how _can_ we come back?” - -“I don’t know,” said Robin. “We shall hate it, but we have nowhere else -to go.” - -“Perhaps we are going to seek our fortunes, and perhaps we shall find -them,” said Meg; “or perhaps Aunt Matilda won’t let us come back. Rob,” -with some awe, “do you think she will be angry?” - -“I’ve thought about that,” Robin answered contemplatively, “and I don’t -think she will. She would be too busy to care much even if we ran away -and said nothing. But I shall leave a letter, and tell her we have saved -our money and gone somewhere for a holiday, and we’re all right, and she -need not bother.” - -“She won’t bother even if she is angry,” Meg said, with mournful eyes. -“She doesn’t care about us enough.” - -“If she loved us,” Rob said, “and was too poor to take us herself, we -couldn’t go at all. We couldn’t run away, because it would worry her so. -You can’t do a thing, however much you want to do it, if it is going to -hurt somebody who is good to you, and cares.” - -“Well, then, we needn’t stay here because of Aunt Matilda,” said Meggy. -“That’s one sure thing. It wouldn’t interfere with her ploughing if we -were both to die at once.” - -“No,” said Rob, deliberately, “that’s just what it would _not_.” And he -threw himself back on the straw and clasped his hands under his head, -gazing up into the dark roof above him with very reflective eyes. - -But they had reached the Wicket Gate, and from the hour they passed it -there was no looking back. That in their utter friendlessness and -loneliness they should take their twelve-year-old fates in their own -strong little hands was, perhaps, a pathetic thing; that once having -done so they moved towards their object as steadily as if they had been -of the maturest years was remarkable, but no one ever knew or even -suspected the first until the last. - -The days went by, full of work, which left them little time to lie and -talk in the Straw Parlor. They could only see each other in the leisure -hours, which were so few, and only came when the day was waning. Finding -them faithful and ready, those about them fell into the natural, easy, -human unworthiness of imposing by no means infrequently on their -inexperienced willingness and youth. So they were hard enough worked, -but each felt that every day that passed brought them nearer to the end -in view; and there was always something to think of, some detail to be -worked out mentally, or to be discussed, in the valuable moments when -they were together. - -“It’s a great deal better than it used to be,” Meg said, “at all events. -It’s better to feel tired by working than to be tired of doing nothing -but think and think dreary things.” - -As the weather grew colder it was hard enough to keep warm in their -hiding-place. They used to sit and talk, huddled close together, bundled -in their heaviest clothing, and with the straw heaped close around them -and over them. - -There were so many things to be thought of and talked over! Robin -collected facts more sedulously than ever—facts about entrance fees, -facts about prices of things to eat, facts about places to sleep. - -“Going to the Fair yourself, sonny?” Jones said to him one day. Jones -was fond of his joke. “You’re right to be inquirin’ round. Them -hotel-keepers is given to tot up bills several stories higher than their -hotels is themselves.” - -“But I suppose a person needn’t go to a hotel,” said Robin. “There must -be plenty of poor people who can’t go to hotels, and they’ll have to -sleep somewhere.” - -“Ah, there’s plenty of poor people,” responded Jones, cheerfully, -“plenty of ’em. Always is. But they won’t go to Chicago while the Fair’s -on. They’ll sleep at home—that’s where they’ll sleep.” - -“That’s the worst of it,” Rob said to Meg afterwards; “you see, we have -to sleep _somewhere_. We could live on bread and milk or crackers and -cheese—or oatmeal—but we have to _sleep_ somewhere.” - -“It will be warm weather,” Meg said, reflectively. “Perhaps we could -sleep out of doors. Beggars do. We don’t mind.” - -“I don’t think the police would let us,” Robin answered. “If they -would—perhaps we might have to, some night; but we are going to that -place, Meg—we are _going_.” - -Yes, they believed they were going, and lived on the belief. This being -decided, howsoever difficult to attain, it was like them both that they -should dwell upon the dream, and revel in it in a way peculiarly their -own. It was Meg whose imagination was the stronger, and it is true that -it was always she who made pictures in words and told stories. But Robin -was always as ready to enter into the spirit of her imaginings as she -was to talk about them. There was a word he had once heard his father -use which had caught his fancy, in fact, it had attracted them both, and -they applied it to this favorite pleasure of theirs of romancing with -everyday things. The word was “philander.” - -“Now we have finished adding up and making plans,” he would say, putting -his ten-cent account-book into his pocket, “let us philander about it.” - -And then Meg would begin to talk about the City Beautiful—a City -Beautiful which was a wonderful and curious mixture of the enchanted one -the whole world was pouring its treasures into, one hundred miles away, -and that City Beautiful of her own which she had founded upon the one -towards which Christian had toiled through the Slough of Despond and up -the Hill of Difficulty and past Doubting Castle. Somehow one could -scarcely tell where one ended and the others began, they were so much -alike, these three cities—Christian’s, Meg’s, and the fair, ephemeral -one the ending of the nineteenth century had built upon the blue lake’s -side. - -“They must look alike,” said Meg. “I am sure they must. See what it says -in the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress.’ ‘Now just as the gates were opened to let -in the men, I looked in after them, and behold, the City shone like the -sun’—and then it says, ‘The talk they had with the Shining Ones was -about the glory of the place; who told them that the beauty and glory of -it were inexpressible.’ I always think of it, Robin, when I read about -those places like white palaces and temples and towers that are being -built. I am so glad they are white. Think how the City will ‘shine like -the sun’ when it stands under the blue sky and by the blue water, on a -sunshiny day.” - -They had never read the dear old worn “Pilgrim’s Progress” as they did -in those days. They kept it in the straw near the Treasure, and always -had it at hand to refer to. In it they seemed to find parallels for -everything. - -“Aunt Matilda’s world is the City of Destruction,” they would say. “And -our loneliness and poorness are like Christian’s ‘burden.’ We have to -carry it like a heavy weight, and it holds us back.” - -“What was it that Goodwill said to Christian about it?” Robin asked. - -Meg turned over the pages. She knew all the places by heart. It was easy -enough to find and read how “At last there came a grave person to the -gate, named Goodwill,” and in the end he said, “As to thy burden, be -content to bear it until thou comest to the place of deliverance; for -there it will fall from thy back itself.” - -“But out of the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’” Robin said, with his reflecting -air, “burdens don’t fall off by themselves. If you are content with them -they stick on and get bigger. Ours would, I know. You have to do -something yourself to get them off. But—” with a little pause for -thought, “I like that part, Meg. And I like Goodwill, because he told it -to him. It encouraged him, you know. You see it says next, ‘Then -Christian began to gird up his loins and address himself to his -journey.’” - -“Robin,” said Meg, suddenly shutting the book and giving it a little -thump on the back, “it’s not only Christian’s City that is like our -City. _We_ are like Christian. We are pilgrims, and our way to that -place is our Pilgrims’ Progress.” - - - - - VII - - -And the cold days of hard work kept going by, and the City Beautiful -grew, and, huddled close together in the straw, the children planned and -dreamed, and read and re-read the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” following -Christian step by step. And Aunt Matilda became busier every day, it -seemed, and did not remember that they were alive except when she saw -them. And nobody guessed and nobody knew. - -Days so quickly grow to weeks, and weeks slip by so easily until they -are months, and at last there came a time when Meg, going out in the -morning, felt a softer air, and stopped a moment by a bare tree to -breathe it in and feel its lovely touch upon her cheek. She turned her -face upward with a half-involuntary movement, and found herself looking -at such a limitless vault of tender blueness that her heart gave a quick -throb, seemed to spring up to it, and carry her with it. For a moment it -seemed as if she had left the earth far below, and was soaring in the -soft depths of blueness themselves. And suddenly, even as she felt it, -she heard on the topmost branch of the bare tree a brief little -rapturous trill, and her heart gave a leap again, and she felt her -cheeks grow warm. - -“It is a bluebird,” she said; “it is a bluebird. And it is the spring, -and that means that the time is quite near.” - -She had a queer little smile on her face all day as she worked. She did -not know it was there herself, but Mrs. Macartney saw it. - -“What’s pleasing you so, Meggy, my girl?” she asked. - -Meg wakened up with a sort of start. - -“I don’t know—exactly,” she said. - -“You don’t know,” said the woman, good-naturedly. “You look as if you -were thinking over a secret, and it was a pleasant one.” - -That evening it was not cold when they sat in the Straw Parlor, and Meg -told Robin about the bluebird. - -“It gave me a strange feeling to hear it,” she said. “It seemed as if it -was speaking to me. It said, ‘You must get ready. It is quite near.’” - -They had made up their minds that they would go in June, before the -weather became so hot that they might suffer from it. - -“Because we have to consider everything,” was Robin’s idea. “We shall be -walking about all the time, and we have no cool clothes, and we shall -have no money to buy cool things; and if we should be ill, it would be -worse for us than for children who have some one with them.” - -In the little account-book they had calculated all they should own on -the day their pilgrimage began. They had apportioned it all out: so much -for the price of the railroad tickets, so much for entrance fees, -and—not so much, but so little—oh, so little!—for their food and -lodging. - -“I have listened when Jones and the others were talking,” said Robin; -“and they say that everybody who has room to spare, and wants to make -money, is going to let every corner they have. So you see there will be -sure to be people who have quite poor places that they would be obliged -to rent cheap to people who are poor, like themselves. We will go -through the small side streets and look.” - -The first bluebird came again, day after day, and others came with it, -until the swift dart of blue wings through the air and the delicious -ripple of joyous sound were no longer rare things. The days grew warmer, -and the men threw off their coats, and began to draw their shirt-sleeves -across their foreheads when they were at work. - -One evening when Robin came up into the Straw Parlor he brought -something with him. It was a battered old tin coffee-pot. - -“What is that for?” asked Meg; for he seemed to carry it as if it was of -some value. - -“It’s old and rusty, but there are no holes in it,” Robin answered. “I -saw it lying in a fence corner, where some one had thrown it—perhaps a -tramp. And it put a new thought into my head. It will do to boil eggs -in.” - -“Eggs!” said Meg. - -“There’s nothing much nicer than hard-boiled eggs,” said Robin, “and you -can carry them about with you. It just came into my mind that we could -take some of our eggs, and go somewhere where no one would be likely to -see us, and build a fire of sticks, and boil some eggs, and carry them -with us to eat.” - -“Robin,” cried Meg, with admiring ecstasy, “I wish I had thought of -that!” - -“It doesn’t matter which of us thought of it,” said Rob, “it’s all the -same.” - -So it was decided that when the time came they should boil their supply -of eggs very hard, and roll them up in pieces of paper and tuck them -away carefully in the one small bag which was to carry all their -necessary belongings. These belongings would be very few—just enough to -keep them decent and clean, and a brush and comb between them. They used -to lie in bed at night, with beating hearts, thinking it all over, -sometimes awakening in a cold perspiration from a dreadful dream, in -which Aunt Matilda or Jones or some of the hands had discovered their -secret and confronted them with it in all its daring. They were so full -of it night and day that Meg used to wonder that the people about them -did not see it in their faces. - -“They are not thinking of us,” said Robin. “They are thinking about -crops. I dare say Aunt Matilda would like to see the Agricultural -Building, but she couldn’t waste the time to go through the others.” - -Oh, what a day it was, what a thrilling, exciting, almost unbearably -joyful day, when Robin gathered sticks and dried bits of branches, and -piled them in a corner of a field far enough from the house and -outbuildings to be quite safe! He did it one noon hour, and as he passed -Meg on his way back to his work, he whispered: - -“I have got the sticks for the fire all ready.” - -And after supper they crept out to the place, with matches, and the -battered old coffee-pot, and the eggs. - -As they made their preparations, they found themselves talking in -whispers, though there was not the least chance of any one’s hearing -them. Meg looked rather like a little witch as she stood over the -bubbling old pot, with her strange, little dark face and shining eyes -and black elf locks. - -“It’s like making a kind of sacrifice on an altar,” she said. - -“You always think queer things about everything, don’t you?” said Robin. -“But they’re all right; I don’t think of them myself, but I like them.” - -When the eggs were boiled hard enough they carried them to the barn and -hid them in the Straw Parlor, near the Treasure. Then they sat and -talked, in whispers still, almost trembling with joy. - -“Somehow, do you know,” Meg said, “it feels as if we were going to do -something more than just go to the Fair. When people in stories go to -seek their fortunes, I’m sure they feel like this. Does it give you a -kind of creeping in your stomach whenever you think of it, Rob?” - -“Yes, it does,” Robin whispered back; “and when it comes into my mind -suddenly something gives a queer jump inside me.” - -“That’s your heart,” said Meg. “Robin, if anything should stop us, I -believe I should drop _dead_.” - -“No, you wouldn’t,” was Rob’s answer, “but it’s better not to let -ourselves think about it. And I don’t believe anything as bad as that -_could_ happen. We’ve worked so hard, and we have nobody but ourselves, -and it can’t do any one any harm—and we don’t _want_ to do any one any -harm. No, there must be _something_ that wouldn’t let it be.” - -[Illustration: MEG LOOKED RATHER LIKE A LITTLE WITCH.] - -“I believe that too,” said Meg, and this time it was she who clutched at -Robin’s hand; but he seemed glad she did, and held as close as she. - -And then, after the bluebirds had sung a few times more, there came a -night when Meg crept out of her cot after she was sure that the woman in -the other bed was sleeping heavily enough. Every one went to bed early, -and every one slept through the night in heavy, tired sleep. Too much -work was done on the place to allow people to waste time in -sleeplessness. Meg knew no one would waken as she crept down stairs to -the lower part of the house and softly opened the back door. - -Robin was standing outside, with the little leather satchel in his hand. -It was a soft, warm night, and the dark blue sky was full of the glitter -of stars. - -Both he and Meg stood still a moment, and looked up. “I’m glad it’s like -this,” Meg said; “it doesn’t seem so lonely. Is your heart thumping, -Robin?” - -“Yes, rather,” whispered Robin. “I left the letter in a place where Aunt -Matilda will be likely to find it some time to-morrow.” - -“What did you say?” Meg whispered back. - -“What I told you I was going to. There wasn’t much to say. Just told her -we had saved our money, and gone away for a few days; and we were all -right, and she needn’t worry.” - -Everything was very still about them. There was no moon, and, but for -the stars, it would have been very dark. As it was, the stillness of -night and sleep, and the sombreness of the hour, might have made less -strong little creatures feel timid and alone. - -“Let us take hold of each other’s hands as we walk along,” said Meg. “It -will make us feel nearer, and—and _twinner_.” - -And so, hand in hand, they went out on the road together. - - - - - VIII - - -It was four miles to the dépôt, but they were good walkers. Robin hung -the satchel on a stick over his shoulder; they kept in the middle of the -road and walked smartly. There were not many trees, but there were a -few, occasionally, and it was pleasanter to walk where the way before -them was quite clear. And somehow they found themselves still talking in -whispers, though there was certainly no one to overhear them. - -“Let us talk about Christian,” said Meg. “It will not seem so lonely if -we are talking. I wish we could meet Evangelist.” - -“If we knew he was Evangelist when we met him,” said Robin. “If we -didn’t know him, we should think he was some one who would stop us. And -after all, you see, he only showed Christian the shining light, and told -him to go to it. And we are farther on than that. We have passed the -Wicket Gate.” - -“The thing we want,” said Meg, “is the Roll to read as we go on, and -find out what we are to do.” - -And then they talked of what was before them. They wondered who would be -at the little dépôt and if they would be noticed, and of what the -ticket-agent would think when Robin bought the tickets. - -“Perhaps he won’t notice me at all,” said Rob. “And he does not know me. -Somebody might be sending us alone, you know. We are not _little_ -children.” - -“That’s true,” responded Meg, courageously. “If we were six years old it -would be different. But we are twelve!” - -It did make it seem less lonely to be talking, and so they did not stop. -And there was so much to say. - -“Robin,” broke forth Meg once, giving his hand a sudden clutch, “we are -on the way—we are _going_. Soon we shall be in the train and it will be -carrying us nearer and nearer. Suppose it was a dream, and we should -wake up!” - -“It isn’t a dream!” said Rob, stoutly. “It’s real—it’s as real as Aunt -Matilda!” He was always more practical-minded than Meg. - -“We needn’t philander any more,” Meg said. - -“It isn’t philandering to talk about a real thing.” - -“Oh, Rob, just think of it—waiting for us under the stars, this very -moment—the City Beautiful!” - -And then, walking close to each other in the dimness, they told each -other how they saw it in imagination, and what its wonders would be to -them, and which they would see first, and how they would remember it all -their lives afterwards, and have things to talk of and think of. Very -few people would see it as they would, but they did not know that. It -was not a gigantic enterprise to them, a great scheme fought for and -struggled over for the divers reasons poor humanity makes for itself; -that it would either make or lose money was not a side of the question -that reached them. They only dwelt on the beauty and wonder of it, which -made it seem like an enchanted thing. - -“I keep thinking of the white palaces, and that it is like a fairy -story,” Meg said, “and that it will melt away like those cities -travellers sometimes see in the desert. And I wish it wouldn’t. But it -will have been real for a while, and everybody will remember it. I am so -glad it is beautiful—and white. I am _so_ glad it is white, Robin!” - -“And I keep thinking,” said Robin, “of all the people who have made the -things to go in it, and how they have worked and invented. There have -been some people, perhaps, who have worked months and months making one -single thing—just as we have worked to go to see it. And perhaps, at -first they were afraid they couldn’t do it, and they set their minds to -it as we did, and tried and tried, and then did it at last. I like to -think of those men and women, Meg, because, when the City has melted -away, the things won’t melt. They will last after the people. And we are -_people_ too. I’m a man, and you are a woman, you know, though we are -only twelve, and it gives me a strong feeling to think of those others.” - -“It makes you think that perhaps men and women _can_ do anything if they -set their minds to it,” said Meg, quite solemnly. “Oh, I do like that!” - -“I like it better than anything else in the world,” said Rob. “Stop a -minute, Meg. Come here in the shade.” - -He said the last words quickly, and pulled her to the roadside, where a -big tree grew which threw a deep shadow. He stood listening. - -“It’s wheels!” he whispered. “There is a buggy coming. We mustn’t let -any one see us.” - -It was a buggy, they could tell that by the lightness of the wheels, and -it was coming rapidly. They could hear voices—men’s voices—and they drew -back and stood very close to each other. - -“Do you think they have found out, and sent some one after us?” -whispered Meg, breathlessly. - -“No,” answered Robin, though his heart beat like a triphammer. “No, no, -no.” - -The wheels drew nearer, and they heard one of the men speaking. - -“Chicago by sunrise,” he was saying, “and what I don’t see of it won’t -be worth seeing.” - -The next minute the fast-trotting horse spun swiftly down the road, and -carried the voices out of hearing. Meg and Robin drew twin sighs of -relief. Robin spoke first. - -“It is some one who is going to the Fair,” he said. - -“Perhaps we shall see him in the train,” said Meg. - -“I dare say we shall,” said Robin. “It was nobody who knows us. I didn’t -know his voice. Meg, let’s take hands again, and walk quickly; we might -lose the train.” - -They did not talk much more, but walked briskly. They had done a good -day’s work before they set out, and were rather tired, but they did not -lag on that account. Sometimes Meg took a turn at carrying the satchel, -so that Robin might rest his arm. It was not heavy, and she was as -strong for a girl as he was for a boy. - -At last they reached the dépôt. There were a number of people waiting on -the platform to catch the train to Chicago, and there were several -vehicles outside. They passed one which was a buggy, and Meg gave Robin -a nudge with her elbow. - -“Perhaps that belongs to our man,” she said. - -There were people enough before the office to give the ticket-agent -plenty to do. Robin’s heart quickened a little as he passed by with the -group of maturer people, but no one seemed to observe him particularly, -and he returned to Meg with the precious bits of pasteboard held very -tight in his hand. - -Meg had waited alone in an unlighted corner, and when she saw him coming -she came forward to meet him. - -“Have you got them?” she said. “Did any one look at you or say -anything?” - -“Yes, I got them,” Robin answered. “And, I’ll tell you what, Meg, these -people are nearly all going just where we are going, and they are so -busy thinking about it, and attending to themselves, that they haven’t -any time to watch any one else. That’s one good thing.” - -“And the nearer we get to Chicago,” Meg said, “the more people there -will be, and the more they will have to think of. And at that beautiful -place, where there is so much to see, who will look at two children? I -don’t believe we shall have any trouble at all.” - -It really did not seem likely that they would, but it happened, by a -curious coincidence, that within a very few minutes they saw somebody -looking at them. - -The train was not due for ten minutes, and there were a few people who, -being too restless to sit in the waiting-rooms, walked up and down on -the platform. Most of these were men, and there were two men who walked -farther than the others did, and so neared the place where Robin and Meg -stood in the shadow. One was a young man, and seemed to be listening to -instructions his companion, who was older, was giving him, in a rapid, -abrupt sort of voice. This companion, who might have been his employer, -was a man of middle age. He was robust of figure and had a clean-cut -face, with a certain effect of strong good looks. It was, perhaps, -rather a hard face, but it was a face one would look at more than once; -and he too, oddly enough, had a square jaw and straight black brows. But -it was his voice which first attracted Robin and Meg as he neared them, -talking. - -“It’s the man in the buggy,” whispered Robin. “Don’t you know his voice -again?” and they watched him with deep interest. - -He passed them once, without seeming to see them at all. He was -explaining something to his companion. The second time he drew near he -chanced to look up, and his eye fell on them. It did not rest on them -more than a second, and he went on speaking. The next time he neared -their part of the platform he turned his glance towards them, as they -stood close together. It was as if involuntarily he glanced to see if -they were still where they had been before. - -“A pair of children,” they heard him say, as if the fleeting impression -of their presence arrested his train of thought for a second. “Look as -if no one was with them.” - -He merely made the comment in passing, and returned to his subject the -next second; but Meg and Robin heard him, and drew farther back into the -shadow. - -But it was not necessary to stand there much longer. They heard a -familiar sound in the distance, the shrill cry of the incoming train—the -beloved giant who was to carry them to fairyland; the people began to -flock out of the waiting-rooms with packages and valises and umbrellas -in hand; the porters suddenly became alert, and hurried about attending -to their duties; the delightful roar drew nearer and louder, and began -to shake the earth; it grew louder still, a bell began to make a -cheerful tolling, people were rushing to and fro; Meg and Robin rushed -with them, and the train was panting in the dépôt. - -It was even more thrilling than the children had thought it would be. -They had travelled so very little, and did not know exactly where to go. -It might not be the right train even. They did not know how long it -would wait. It might rush away again before they could get on. People -seemed in such a hurry and so excited. As they hurried along they found -themselves being pushed and jostled, before the steps of one of the cars -a conductor stood, whom people kept showing tickets to. There were -several persons round him when Robin and Meg reached the place where he -stood. People kept asking him things, and sometimes he passed them on, -and sometimes let them go into his car. - -[Illustration: “IS THIS THE TRAIN TO CHICAGO?” SAID ROBIN.] - -“Is this the train to Chicago?” said Robin, breathlessly. - -But he was so much less than the other people, and the man was so busy, -he did not hear him. - -Robin tried to get nearer. - -“Is this the Chicago train, sir?” he said, a little louder. - -He had had to press by a man whom he had been too excited to see, and -the man looked down, and spoke to him. - -“Chicago train?” he said, in a voice which was abrupt, without being -ill-natured. “Yes, you’re all right. Got your sleeping tickets?” - -Robin looked up at him quickly. He knew the voice, and was vaguely glad -to hear it. He and Meg had never been in a sleeping-car in their lives, -and he did not quite understand. He held out his tickets. - -“We are going to sleep on the train,” he said; “but we have nothing but -these.” - -“Next car but two, then,” he said; “and you’d better hurry.” - -And when both voices thanked him at once, and the two caught each -other’s hands and ran towards their car, he looked after them and -laughed. - -“I’m blessed if they’re not by themselves,” he said, watching them as -they scrambled up the steps. “And they’re going to the Fair, I’ll bet a -dollar. _That’s Young America_, and no mistake!” - - - - - IX - - -The car was quite crowded. There were more people than themselves who -were going to the Fair and were obliged to economize. When the children -entered, and looked about them in the dim light, they thought at first -that all the seats were full. People seemed to be huddled up asleep or -sitting up awake in all of them. Everybody had been trying to get to -sleep, at least, and the twins found themselves making their whispers -even lower than before. - -“I think there is a seat empty just behind that very fat lady,” Meg -whispered. - -It was at the end of the car, and they went to it, and found she was -right. They took possession of it quietly, putting their satchel under -the seat. - -“It seems so still,” said Meg, “I feel as if I was in somebody’s -bedroom. The sound of the wheels makes it seem all the quieter. It’s as -if we were shut in by the noise.” - -“We mustn’t talk,” said Robin, “or we shall waken the people. Can you go -to sleep, Meg?” - -“I can if I can stop thinking,” she answered, with a joyful sigh. “I’m -very tired; but the wheels keep saying, over and over again, ‘We’re -going—we’re going—we’re going.’ It’s just as if they were talking. Don’t -you hear them?” - -“Yes, I do. Do they say that to you, too? But we mustn’t listen,” Robin -whispered back. “If we do we shall not go to sleep, and then we shall be -too tired to walk about. Let’s put our heads down, and shut our eyes, -Meg.” - -“Well, let’s,” said Meg. - -She curled herself up on the seat, and put her head into the corner. - -“If you lean against me, Rob,” she said, “it will be softer. We can take -turns.” - -They changed position a little two or three times, but they were worn -out with the day’s work, and their walk, and the excitement, and the -motion of the train seemed like a sort of rocking which lulled them. -Gradually their muscles relaxed and they settled down, though, after -they had done so, Meg spoke once, drowsily. - -“Rob,” she said, “did you see that was our man?” - -“Yes,” answered Rob, very sleepily indeed, “and he looked as if he knew -us.” - - * * * * * * * * - -If they had been less young, or if they had been less tired, they might -have found themselves awake a good many times during the night. But they -were such children, and, now that the great step was taken, were so -happy, that the soft, deep sleepiness of youth descended upon and -overpowered them. Once or twice during the night they stirred, wakened -for a dreamy, blissful moment by some sound of a door shutting, or a -conductor passing through. But they were only conscious of a delicious -sense of strangeness, of the stillness of the car full of sleepers, of -the half-realized delight of feeling themselves carried along through -the unknown country, and of the rattle of the wheels, which never ceased -saying rhythmically, “We’re going—we’re going—we’re going!” - -Ah! what a night of dreams and new, vague sensations, to be remembered -always! Ah! that heavenly sense of joy to come, and adventure, and young -hopefulness and imagining! Were there many others carried towards the -City Beautiful that night who bore with them the same rapture of longing -and belief; who saw with such innocent clearness only the fair and -splendid thought which had created it, and were so innocently blind to -any shadow of sordidness or mere worldly interest touching its white -walls? And after the passing of this wonderful night, what a wakening in -the morning, at the first rosiness of dawn, when all the other occupants -of the car were still asleep, or restlessly trying to be at ease! - -It was as if they both wakened at almost the same moment. The first -shaft of early sunlight streaming in the window touched Meg’s eyelids, -and she slowly opened them. Then something joyous and exultant rushed in -upon her heart, and she sat upright. And Robin sat up too, and they -looked at each other. - -“It’s the Day, Meg!” said Robin. “It’s the Day!” Meg caught her breath. - -“And nothing has stopped us,” she said. “And we are getting nearer and -nearer. Rob, let us look out of the window.” - -For a while they looked out, pressed close together, and full of such -ecstasy of delight in the strangeness of everything that at first they -did not exchange even their whispers. - -It is rather a good thing to see—rather well worth while even for a man -or woman—the day waking, and waking the world, as one is borne swiftly -through the morning light, and one looks out of a car window. What it -was to these two children only those who remember the children who were -themselves long ago can realize at all. The country went hurrying past -them, making curious sudden revelations and giving half-hints in its -haste; prairie and field, farmhouse and wood and village all wore a -strange, exciting, vanishing aspect. - -“It seems,” Meg said, “as if it was all going somewhere—in a great -hurry—as if it couldn’t wait to let us see it.” - -“But we are the ones that are going,” said Rob. “Listen to the -wheels—and we shall soon be there.” - -After a while the people who were asleep began to stir and stretch -themselves. Some of them looked cross, and some looked tired. The very -fat lady in the seat before them had a coal smut on her nose. - -“Robin,” said Meg, after looking at her seriously a moment, “let’s get -our towel out of the bag and wet it and wash our faces.” - -They had taken the liberty of borrowing a towel from Aunt Matilda. It -was Meg who had thought of it, and it had, indeed, been an inspiration. -Robin wetted two corners of it, and they made a rigorous if limited -toilet. At least they had no smuts on their noses, and after a little -touching up with the mutual comb and brush, they looked none the worse -for wear. Their plain and substantial garments were not of the order -which has any special charm to lose. - -“And it’s not our clothes that are going to the Fair,” said Meg, “it’s -_us_!” - -And by the time they were in good order, the farms and villages they -were flying past had grown nearer together. The platforms at the dépôts -were full of people who wore a less provincial look; the houses grew -larger and so did the towns; they found themselves flashing past -advertisements of all sorts of things, and especially of things -connected with the Fair. - -“You know how we used to play ‘hunt the thimble,’” said Robin, “and how, -when any one came near the place where it was hidden, we said, -‘Warm—warmer—warmer still—hot!’ It’s like that now. We have been getting -warmer and warmer every minute, and now we are getting——” - -“We shall be in in a minute,” said a big man at the end of the car, and -he stood up and began to take down his things. - -“Hot,” said Robin, with an excited little laugh. “Meg, we’re not -going—going—going any more. Look out of the window.” - -“We are steaming into the big dépôt,” cried Meg. “How big it is! What -crowds of people! Robin, we are there!” - -Robin bent down to pick up their satchel; the people all rose in their -seats and began to move in a mass down the aisle toward the door. -Everybody seemed suddenly to become eager and in a hurry, as if they -thought the train would begin to move again and carry them away. Some -were expecting friends to meet them, some were anxious about finding -accommodations. Those who knew each other talked, asked questions over -people’s shoulders, and there was a general anxiety about valises, -parcels, and umbrellas. Robin and Meg were pressed back into their -section by the crowd, against which they were too young to make headway. - -“We shall have to wait until the grown-up people have passed by,” Rob -said. - -But the crowd in the aisle soon lost its compactness, and they were able -to get out. The porter, who stood on the platform near the steps, looked -at them curiously, and glanced behind them to see who was with them, but -he said nothing. - -It seemed to the two as if all the world must have poured itself into -the big dépôt or be passing through it. People were rushing about; -friends were searching for one another, pushing their way through the -surging crowd; some were greeting each other with exclamations and -hand-shaking, and stopping up the way; there was a Babel of voices, a -clamor of shouts within the covered place, and from outside came a roar -of sound rising from the city. - -For a few moments Robin and Meg were overwhelmed. They did not quite -know what to do; everybody pushed past and jostled them. No one was -ill-natured, but no one had time to be polite. They were so young and so -strange to all such worlds of excitement and rush, involuntarily they -clutched each other’s hands after their time-honored fashion, when they -were near each other and overpowered. The human vortex caught them up -and carried them along, not knowing where they were going. - -“We seem so little!” gasped Meg. “There—there are so many people! Rob, -Rob, where are we going?” - -Robin had lost his breath too. Suddenly the world seemed so huge—so -huge! Just for a moment he felt himself turn pale, and he looked at Meg -and saw that she was pale too. - -“Everybody is going out of the dépôt,” he said. - -“Hold on to me tight, Meg. It will be all right. We shall get out.” - -And so they did. The crowd surged and swayed and struggled, and before -long they saw that it was surging towards the entrance gate, and it took -them with it. Just as they thrust through they found themselves pushed -against a man, who good-naturedly drew a little back to save Meg from -striking against his valise, which was a very substantial one. She -looked up to thank him, and gave a little start. It was the man she had -called “our man” the night before, when she spoke of him to Robin. And -he gave them a sharp but friendly nod. - -“Hallo!” he exclaimed, “it’s you two again. You _are_ going to the -Fair!” - -Robin looked up at his shrewd face with a civil little grin. - -“Yes, sir; we are,” he answered. - -“Hope you’ll enjoy it,” said the man. “Big thing.” And he was pushed -past them and soon lost in the crowd. - - - - - X - - -The crowd in the dépôt surged into the streets, and melted into and -became an addition to the world of people there. The pavements were -moving masses of human beings, the centres of the streets were -pandemoniums of wagons and vans, street cars, hotel omnibuses, and -carriages. The brilliant morning sunlight dazzled the children’s eyes; -the roar of wheels and the clamor of car bells, of clattering horses’ -feet, of cries and shouts and passing voices, mingled in a volume of -sound that deafened them. The great tidal wave of human life and work -and pleasure almost took them off their feet. - -They knew too little of cities to have had beforehand any idea of what -the overwhelming rush and roar would be, and what slight straws they -would feel themselves upon the current. If they had been quite ordinary -children, they might well have been frightened. But they were not -ordinary children, little as they were aware of that important factor in -their young lives. They were awed for this first moment, but, somehow, -they were fascinated as much as they were awed, while they stood for a -brief breathing-space looking on. They did not know—no child of their -ages can possibly know such things of him or herself—that Nature had -made them of the metal out of which she moulds strong things and great -ones. As they had not comprehended the restless sense of wrong and -misery the careless, unlearning, and ungrowing life in Aunt Matilda’s -world filled them with, so they did not understand that, because they -had been born creatures who belong to the great moving, working, -venturing world, they were not afraid of it, and felt their first young -face-to-face encounter with it a thing which thrilled them with an -exultant emotion they could not have explained. - -“This is not Aunt Matilda’s world,” said Rob. “It—I believe it is ours, -Meg. Don’t you?” - -Meg was staring with entranced eyes at the passing multitude. - -“‘More pilgrims are come to town,’” she said, quoting the “Pilgrim’s -Progress” with a far-off look in her intense little black-browed face. -“You remember what it said, Rob, ‘Here also all the noise of them that -walked in the streets was, More pilgrims are come to town.’ Oh, isn’t it -like it!” - -It was. And the exaltation and thrill of it got into their young blood -and made them feel as if they walked on air, and that every passing -human thing meant, somehow, life and strength to them. - -Their appetites were sharpened by the morning air, and they consulted as -to what their breakfast should be. They had no money to spend at -restaurants, and every penny must be weighed and calculated. - -“Let’s walk on,” said Meg, “until we see a bakery that looks as if it -was kept by poor people. Then we can buy some bread, and eat it with our -eggs somewhere.” - -“All right,” said Robin. - -They marched boldly on. The crowd jostled them, and there was so much -noise that they could hardly hear each other speak; but ah! how the sun -shone, and how the pennons fluttered and streamed on every side, and how -excited and full of living the people’s faces looked! It seemed -splendid, only to be alive in such a world on such a morning. The sense -of the practical which had suggested that they should go to a small -place led them into the side streets. They passed all the big shops -without a glance, but at last Meg stooped before a small one. - -“There’s a woman in there,” she said; “I just saw her for a minute. She -has a nice face. She looked as if she might be good-natured. Let’s go in -there, Robin. It’s quite a small place.” - -They went in. It was a small place but a clean one, and the woman had a -good-natured face. She was a German, and was broad and placid and -comfortable. They bought some fresh rolls from her, and as she served -them, and was making the change, Meg watched her anxiously. She was -thinking that she did look very peaceable, indeed. So, instead of -turning away from the counter, she planted herself directly before her -and asked her a question. - -“If you please,” she said, “we have some hard-boiled eggs to eat with -our bread, and we are not going home. If we are very careful, would you -mind if we ate our breakfast in here, instead of outside? We won’t let -any of the crumbs or shells drop on the floor.” - -“You not going home?” said the woman. “You from out town?” - -“Yes,” answered Meg. - -“You look like you wass goun to der Fair,” said the woman, with a -good-tempered smile. “Who wass with you?” - -“No one,” said Robin. “We are going alone. But we’re all right.” - -“My crayshious!” said the woman. “But you wass young for that. But your -’Merican childrens is queer ones. Yes! You can sit down an’ eat your -bregfast. That make no matter to me if you is careful. You can sit -down.” - -There were two chairs near a little table, where, perhaps, occasional -customers ate buns, and they sat down to their rolls and eggs and salt, -as to a feast. - -“I was hungry,” said Rob, cracking his fourth egg. - -“So was I!” said Meg, feeling that her fresh roll was very delicious. - -It was a delightful breakfast. The German woman watched them with placid -curiosity as they ate it. She had been a peasant in her own country, and -had lived in a village among rosy, stout, and bucolic little Peters and -Gretchens, who were not given to enterprise, and the American child was -a revelation to her. And somehow, also, these two had an attraction all -American children had not. They looked so well able to take care of -themselves, and yet had such good manners and no air of self-importance -at all. They ate their rolls and hard-boiled eggs with all the gusto of -very young appetite, but they evidently meant to keep their part of the -bargain, and leave her no crumbs and shells to sweep up. The truth was -that they were perfectly honorable little souls, and had a sense of -justice. They were in the midst of their breakfast, when they were -rather startled by hearing her voice from the end of the counter where -she had been standing, leaning against the wall, her arms folded. - -“You like a cup coffee?” she asked. - -[Illustration: “YOU LIKE A CUP COFFEE?” SHE ASKED.] - -They both looked round, uncertain what to say, not knowing whether or -not that she meant that she sold coffee. They exchanged rather disturbed -glances, and then Robin answered. - -“We can’t afford it, thank you, ma’am,” he said, “we’ve got so little -money.” - -“Never mind,” she astonished them by answering, “that cost me nothing. -There some coffee left on the back of the stove from my man’s bregfast. -I give you each a cup.” And she actually went into the little back room, -and presently brought back two good cups of hot coffee. - -“There, you drink that,” she said, setting them down on the little -table. “If you children goun to der Fair in that crowd by yourselves, -you want something in your stomachs.” - -It was so good—it was so unexpected—it seemed such luck! They looked at -each other with beaming eyes, and at her with quite disproportionate -gratitude. It was much more than two cups of coffee to them. - -“Oh, thank you,” they both exclaimed. “We’re so much obliged to you, -ma’am!” - -Their feast seemed to become quite a royal thing. They never had felt so -splendidly fed in their lives. It seemed as if they had never tasted -such coffee. - -When the meal was finished, they rose refreshed enough to feel ready for -anything. They went up to the counter and thanked the German woman -again. It was Meg who spoke to her. - -“We want to say thank you again,” she said. “We are very much obliged to -you for letting us eat our breakfast in here. It was so nice to sit -down, and the coffee was so splendid. I dare say we do seem rather young -to be by ourselves, but that makes us all the more thankful.” - -“That’s all right,” said the woman. “I hope you don’t get lost by der -Fair—and have good time!” - -And then they went forth on their pilgrimage, into the glorious morning, -into the rushing world that seemed so splendid and so gay—into the -fairy-land that only themselves and those like them could see. - -“Isn’t it nice when some one’s kind to you, Rob?” Meg exclaimed -joyfully, when they got into the sunshine. “Doesn’t it make you feel -happy, somehow, not because they’ve done something, but just because -they’ve been kind?” - -“Yes, it does,” answered Rob, stepping out bravely. “And I’ll tell you -what I believe—I believe there are a lot of kind people in the world.” - -“So do I,” said Meg. “I believe they’re in it even when we don’t see -them.” - -And all the more, with springing steps and brave young faces, they -walked on their way to fairy-land. - -They had talked it all over—how they would enter their City Beautiful. -It would be no light thing to them, their entrance into it. They were -innocently epicurean about it, and wanted to see it at the very first in -all its loveliness. They knew that there were gates of entrance here and -there, through which thousands poured each day; but Meg had a fancy of -her own, founded, of course, upon that other progress of the Pilgrim’s. - -“Robin,” she said, “oh, we must go in by the water, just like those -other pilgrims who came to town. You know that part at the last where it -says, ‘And so many went over the water and were let in at the golden -gates to-day.’ Let us go over the water and be let in at the golden -gates. But the water we shall go over won’t be dark and bitter; it will -be blue and splendid, and the sun will be shining everywhere. Ah, Rob, -how _can_ it be true that we are here!” - -They knew all about the great arch of entrance and stately peristyle. -They had read in the newspapers all about its height and the height of -the statues adorning it; they knew how many columns formed the -peristyle, but it was not height or breadth or depth or width they -remembered. The picture which remained with them and haunted them like a -fair dream was of a white and splendid archway, crowned with one of the -great stories of the world in marble—the triumph of the man in whom the -god was so strong that his dreams, the working of his mind, his -strength, his courage, his suffering, wrested from the silence of the -Unknown a new and splendid world. It was this great white arch they -always thought of, with this precious marble story crowning it, the -blue, blue water spread before the stately columns at its side, and the -City Beautiful within the courts it guarded. And it was to this they -were going when they found their way to the boat which would take them -to it. - -It was such a heavenly day of June! The water was so amethystine, the -sky such a vault of rapture! What did it matter to them that they were -jostled and crowded, and counted for nothing among those about them? -What did it matter that there were often near them common faces, -speaking of nothing but common, stupid pleasure or common sharpness and -greed? What did it matter that scarcely any one saw what they saw, or, -seeing it, realized its splendid, hopeful meaning? Little recked they of -anything but the entrancement of blue sky and water, and the City -Beautiful they were drawing near to. - -When first out of the blueness there rose the fair shadow of the -whiteness, they sprang from their seats, and, hand in hand, made their -way to the side, and there stood watching, as silent as if they did not -dare to speak lest it should melt away; and from a fair white spirit it -grew to a real thing—more white, more fair, more stately, and more an -enchanted thing than even they had believed or hoped. - -And the crowd surged about them, and women exclaimed and men talked, and -there was a rushing to and fro, and the ringing of a bell, and movement -and action and excitement were on every side. But somehow these two -children stood hand in hand and only looked. - -And their dream had come true, though it had been a child’s dream of an -enchanted thing. - - - - - XI - - -They passed beneath the snow-white stateliness of the great arch, still -hand in hand, and silent. They walked softly, almost as if they felt -themselves treading upon holy ground. To their youth and unworn souls it -_was_ like holy ground, they had so dreamed of it, they had so longed -for it, it had been so mingled in their minds with the story of a city -not of this world. - -And they stood within the court beyond the archway, the fair and noble -colonnade, its sweep of columns, statue-crowned, behind them, the wonder -of the City Beautiful spread before. The water of blue lagoons lapped -the bases of white palaces, as if with a caress of homage to their -beauty. On every side these marvels stood; everywhere there was the -green of sward and broad-leaved plants, the sapphire of water, the flood -of color and human life passing by, and above it all and enclosing it, -the warm, deep, splendid blueness of the summer sky. - -It was so white—it was so full of the marvel of color—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 and -beautiful place as they had never dreamed of. - -“Where shall we go first?” said Meg. “What shall we do?” - -But it was so difficult to decide that. It did not seem possible to make -a plan and follow it. It was not possible for them, at least. They were -too happy and too young. Surely visitors to fairy-land could not make -plans! They gave themselves up to the spell, and went where fancy led -them. And it led them far, and through strange beauties, which seemed -like dreams come true. They wandered down broad pathways, past green -sward, waving palms, glowing masses of flowers, white balustrades -bordering lagoons lightly ruffled by a moment’s wind. Wonderful statues -stood on silent guard, sometimes in groups, sometimes majestic colossal -figures. - -“They look as if they were all watching the thousands and thousands go -by,” said Robin. - -“It seems as if they must be thinking something about it all,” Meg -answered. “It could not be that they could stand there and look like -that and not know.” - -It was she who soon after built up for them the only scheme they made -during those enchanted days. It could scarcely be called a plan of -action, it was so much an outcome of imagination and part of a vision, -but it was a great joy to them through every hour of their pilgrimage. - -Standing upon a fairy bridge, looking over shining canals crossed by -these fairy bridges again and again, the gold sun lighting snow-white -columns, archways, towers, and minarets, statues and rushing fountains, -flowers and palms, her child eyes filled with a deep, strange glow of -joy and dreaming. - -She leaned upon the balustrade in her favorite fashion, her chin upon -her hands. - -“We need not _pretend_ it is a fairy story, Robin,” she said. “It _is_ a -fairy story, but it is real. Who ever thought a fairy story could come -true? I’ve made up how it came to be like this.” - -“Tell us how,” said Robin, looking over the jewelled water almost as she -did. - -“It was like this,” she said. “There was a great Magician who was the -ruler of all the Genii in all the world. They were all powerful and rich -and wonderful magicians, but he could make them obey him, and give him -what they stored away. And he said: ‘I will build a splendid City, that -all the world shall flock to and wonder at and remember forever. And in -it some of all the things in the world shall be seen, so that the people -who see it shall learn what the world is like—how huge it is, and what -wisdom it has in it, and what wonders! And it will make them know what -_they_ are like themselves, because the wonders will be made by hands -and feet and brains just like their own. And so they will understand how -strong they are—if they only knew it—and it will give them courage and -fill them with thoughts.” - -She stopped a moment, and Rob pushed her gently with his elbow. - -“Go on,” he said, “I like it. It sounds quite true. What else?” - -“And he called all the Genii together and called them by their names. -There was one who was the king of all the pictures and statues, and the -people who worked at making them. They did not know they had a Genius, -but they had, and he put visions into their heads, and made them feel -restless until they had worked them out into statues and paintings. And -the Great Genius said to him: ‘You must build a palace for _your_ -people, and make them pour their finest work into it; and all the people -who are made to be your workers, whether they know it or not, will look -at your palace and see what other ones have done, and wonder if they -cannot do it themselves.’ And there was a huge, huge Genius who was made -of steel and iron and gold and silver and wheels, and the Magician said -to him: ‘Build a great palace, and make your workers fill it with all -the machines and marvels they have made, and all who see will know what -wonders can be done, and feel that there is no wonder that isn’t done -that is too great for human beings to plan.’ And there was a Genius of -the strange countries, and one who knew all the plants and flowers and -trees that grew, and one who lived at the bottom of the sea and knew the -fishes by name and strode about among them. And each one was commanded -to build a palace or to make his people work, and they grew so -interested that in the end each one wanted his palace and his people to -be the most wonderful of all. And so the City was built, and we are in -it, Robin, though we are only twelve years old, and nobody cares about -us.” - -“Yes,” said Robin, “and the City is as much ours as if we were the -Magician himself. Meg, who was the Magician? _What_ was he?” - -“I don’t know,” said Meg. “Nobody knows. He is that—that——” She gave a -sudden, queer little touch to her forehead and one to her side. “_That_, -you know, Rob! The thing that _thinks_—and makes us want to do things -and be things. Don’t you suppose so, Rob?” - -“The thing that made us want so to come here that we could not bear -_not_ to come?” said Robin. “The thing that makes you make up stories -about everything, and always have queer thoughts?” - -“Yes—that!” said Meg. “And every one has some of it; and there are such -millions of people, and so there is enough to make the Great Magician. -Robin, come along; let us go to the palace the picture Genius built, and -see what his people put in it. Let us be part of the fairy story when we -go anywhere. It will make it beautiful.” - -They took their fairy story with them and went their way. They made it -as much the way of a fairy story as possible. They found a gondola with -a rich-hued, gay-scarfed gondolier, and took their places. - -“Now we are in Venice,” Meg said, as they shot smoothly out upon the -lagoon. “We can be in any country we like. Now we are in Venice.” - -Their gondola stopped, and lay rocking on the lagoon before the palace’s -broad white steps. They mounted them, and entered into a rich, glowing -world, all unknown. - -They knew little of pictures, they knew nothing of statuary, but they -went from room to room, throbbing with enjoyment. They stopped before -beautiful faces and happy scenes, and vaguely smiled, though they did -not know they were smiling; they lingered before faces and figures that -were sad, and their own dark little faces grew soft and grave. They -could not afford to buy a catalogue, so they could only look and pity -and delight or wonder. - -“We must make up the stories and thoughts of them ourselves,” Robin -said. “Let’s take it in turns, Meg. Yours will be the best ones, of -course.” - -[Illustration: “NOW WE ARE IN VENICE.”] - -And this was what they did. As they passed from picture to picture, each -took turns at building up explanations. Some of them might have been at -once surprising and instructive to the artist concerned, but some were -very vivid, and all were full of young directness and clear sight, and -the fresh imagining and coloring of the unworn mind. They were so -interested that it became like a sort of exciting game. They forgot all -about the people around them; they did not know that their two small, -unchaperoned figures attracted more glances than one. They were so -accustomed to being alone, that they never exactly counted themselves in -with other people. And now, it was as if they were at a banquet, -feasting upon strange viands, and the new flavors were like wine to -them. They went from side to side of the rooms, drawn sometimes by a -glow of color, sometimes by a hinted story. - -“We don’t know anything about pictures, I suppose,” said Meg, “but we -can see everything is in them. There are the poor, working in the fields -and the mills, being glad or sorry; and there are the rich ones, dancing -at balls and standing in splendid places.” - -“And there are the good ones and the bad ones. You can see it in their -faces,” Rob went on, for her. - -“Yes,” said Meg; “richness and poorness and goodness and badness and -happiness and gladness. The Genius who made this palace was a very proud -one, and he said he would put all the world in it, even if his workers -could only make pictures and statues.” - -“Was he the strongest of all?” asked Robin, taking up the story again -with interest. - -“I don’t know,” Meg answered; “sometimes I think he was. He was -strong—he was very strong.” - -They had been too deeply plunged into their mood to notice a man who -stood near them, looking at a large picture. In fact, the man himself -had not at first noticed them, but when Meg began to speak her voice -attracted him. He turned his head, and looked at her odd little -reflecting face, and, after having looked at it, he stood listening to -her. An expression of recognition came into his strong, clean-shaven -face. - -“You two again!” he said, when she had finished. “And you have got -here.” It was their man again. - -“Yes,” answered Meg, her gray eyes revealing, as she lifted them to his -face, that she came back to earth with some difficulty. - -“How do you like it, as far as you’ve gone?” he asked. - -“We are making believe that it is a fairy story,” Meg answered; “and -it’s very easy.” - -And then a group of people came between and separated them. - - - - - XII - - -How tired they were when they came out from the world of pictures into -the world of thronging people! How their limbs ached and they were -brought back to the realization that they were creatures with human -bodies, which somehow they seemed to have forgotten! - -When they stood in the sunshine again Robin drew a long breath. - -“It is like coming out of one dream into another,” he said. “We must -have been there a long time. I didn’t know I was tired and I didn’t know -I was hungry, but I am both. Are you?” - -She was as tired and hungry as he was. - -“Dare we buy a sandwich to eat with our eggs?” she said. - -“Yes, I think we dare,” Robin answered. “Where shall we go and eat -them?” - -There was no difficulty in deciding. She had planned it all out, and -they so knew the place by heart that they did not need to ask their way. -It was over one of the fairy bridges which led to a fairy island. It was -softly wooded, and among the trees were winding paths and flowers and -rustic seats, and quaint roofs peering above the greenness of branches. -And it was full of the warm scent of roses, growing together in -sumptuous thousands, their heavy, sweet heads uplifted to the sun, or -nodding and leaning towards their neighbors’ clusters. - -The fairy bridge linked it to the wonderful world beyond, but by -comparison its bowers were almost quiet. The crowd did not jostle there. - -“And we shall be eating our lunch near thousands and thousands of roses. -It will be like the ‘Arabian Nights.’ Let us pretend that the rose who -is queen of them all invited us, because we belong to nobody,” Meg said. - -They bought the modest addition to their meal, and carried the -necessary, ever-present satchel to their bower. They were tired of -dragging the satchel about, but they were afraid to lose sight of it. - -“It’s very well that it is such a small one, and that we have so little -in it,” Robin said. They chose the most secluded corner they could find, -as near to the rose garden as possible, and sat down and fell upon their -scant lunch as they had fallen upon their breakfast. - -It was very scant for two ravenously hungry children, and they tried to -make it last as long as possible. But scant as it was, and tired as they -were, their spirits did not fail them. - -“Perhaps, if we eat it slowly, it will seem more,” said Meg, peeling an -egg with deliberation, but with a very undeliberate feeling in her small -stomach. “Robin, did you notice our man?” - -“I saw him, of course,” answered Robin; “he’s too big not to see.” - -“I _noticed_ him,” continued Meg. “Robin, there’s something the matter -with that man. He’s a gloomy man.” - -“Well, you noticed him quickly,” Robin responded, with a shade of -fraternal incredulity. “What’s happened to him?” - -Meg’s eyes fixed themselves on a glimpse of blue water she saw through -the trees. She looked as if she were thinking the matter over. - -“How do I know?” she said; “I couldn’t. But, somehow, he has a dreary -face, as if he had been thinking of dreary things. I don’t know why I -thought that all in a minute, but I did, and I believe it’s true.” - -“Well, if we should see him again,” Robin said, “I’ll look and see.” - -“I believe we shall see him again,” said Meg. “How many eggs have we -left, Robin?” - -“We only brought three dozen,” he answered, looking into the satchel; -“and we ate seven this morning.” - -“When you have nothing but eggs, you eat a good many,” said Meg, -reflectively. “They won’t last very long. But we couldn’t have carried a -thousand eggs, even if we had had them”—which was a sage remark. - -“We shall have to buy some cheap things,” was Robin’s calculation. -“They’ll have to be very cheap, though. We have to pay a dollar, you -know, every day, to come in; and if we have no money we can’t go into -the places that are not free; and we want to go into everything.” - -“I’d rather go in hungry than stay outside and have real dinners, -wouldn’t you?” Meg put it to him. - -“Yes, I would,” he answered, “though it’s pretty hard to be hungry.” - -They had chosen a secluded corner to sit in, but it was not so secluded -that they had it entirely to themselves. At a short distance from them, -in the nearest bowery nook, a young man and woman were eating something -out of a basket. They looked like a young country pair, plain and -awkward, and enjoying themselves immensely. Their clothes were common -and their faces were tanned, as if from working out of doors. But their -basket evidently contained good, home-made things to eat. Meg caught -glimpses of ham and chicken, and something that looked like cake. Just -at that moment they looked so desperately good that she turned away her -eyes, because she did not want to stare at them rudely. And as she -averted them, she saw that Robin had seen, too. - -“Those people have plenty to eat,” he said, with a short, awkward laugh. - -“Yes,” she answered. “Don’t let us look. We are _here_, Robin, anyway, -and we knew we couldn’t come as other people do.” - -“Yes,” he said, “we are _here_.” - -The man and his wife finished their lunch, and began putting things in -order in their basket. As they did it, they talked together in a low -voice, and seemed to be discussing something. Somehow, in spite of her -averted eyes, Meg suddenly felt as if they were discussing Robin and -herself, and she wondered if they had caught her involuntary look. - -“I think, Robin,” said Meg—“I think that woman is going to speak to us.” - -It was evident that she was. She got up and came towards them, her -husband following her rather awkwardly. - -She stopped before them, and the two pairs of dark eyes lifted -themselves to her face. - -“I’ve just been talking to my man about you two,” she said. “We couldn’t -help looking at you. Have you lost your friends?” - -“No, ma’am,” said Robin, “we haven’t got any; I mean, we’re not with any -one.” - -The woman turned and looked at her husband. - -“Well, Jem!” she exclaimed. - -The man drew near and looked them over. - -He was a raw-boned, big young man, with a countrified, good-natured -face. - -“You haven’t come here alone?” he said. - -“Yes,” said Robin. “We couldn’t have come, if we hadn’t come alone. -We’re not afraid, thank you. We’re getting along very well.” - -“Well, Jem!” said the woman again. - -She seemed quite stirred. There was something in her ordinary, -good-natured face that was quite like a sort of rough emotion. - -“Have you plenty of money?” she asked. - -“No,” said Robin, “not plenty, but we have a little.” - -She put her basket down and opened it. She took out some pieces of brown -fried chicken; then she took out some big slices of cake, with raisins -in it. She even added some biscuits and slices of ham. Then she put them -in a coarse, clean napkin. - -“Now, look here,” she said, “don’t you go filling up with candy and -peanuts, just because you are by yourselves. You put this in your bag, -and eat it when you’re ready. ’T any rate, it’s good, home-made -victuals, and won’t harm you.” - -And in the midst of their shy thanks, she shut the basket again and went -off with her husband, and they heard her say again, before she -disappeared, - -“Well, Jem!” - -[Illustration: “WELL, JEM!” SHE EXCLAIMED.] - - - - - XIII - - -Yes, there were plenty of kind people in the world, and one of the best -proofs of it was that, in that busy, wonderful place through which all -the world seemed passing, and where, on every side, were a thousand -things to attract attention, and so fill eyes and mind that -forgetfulness and carelessness of small things might not have been quite -unnatural, these two small things, utterly insignificant and unknown to -the crowds they threaded, met many a passing friend of the moment, and -found themselves made happier by many a kindly and helpful word or look. -Officials were good-natured to them, guides were good-humored, motherly -women and fatherly men protected them in awkward crowds. They always saw -that those who noticed them glanced about for their chaperons, and again -and again they were asked who was taking care of them; but Robin’s -straightforward, civil little answer, “We’re taking care of ourselves,” -never failed to waken as much friendly interest as surprise. - -They kept up their fairy story of the Great Genius, and called things by -fairy-story names, and talked to each other of their fairy-story fancies -about them. It was so much more delightful to say: “Let us go to the -Palace of the Genius of the Sea,” than to say, “Let us go to the -Fisheries’ building.” And once in the palace, standing among great rocks -and pools and fountains, with water splashing and tumbling over strange -sea-plants, and strange sea-monsters swimming beneath their eyes in -green sea-water, it was easy to believe in the Genius who had brought -them all together. - -“He was very huge,” Meg said, making a picture of him. “He had monstrous -eyes, that looked like the sea when it is blue; he had great, white -coral teeth, and he had silver, scaly fishskin wound round him, and his -hair was long sea-grass and green and brown weeds.” - -They stood in grottoes and looked down into clear pools, at -swift-darting things of gold and silver and strange prismatic colors. -Meg made up stories of tropical rivers, with palms and jungle cane -fringing them, and tigers and lions coming to lap at the brink. She -invented rushing mountain streams and lakes, with speckled trout -leaping; and deep, deep seas, where whales lay rocking far below, and -porpoises rolled, and devil-fish spread hideous, far-reaching tentacles -for prey. - -Oh, what a day it was! What wonders they saw and hung over, and dwelt on -with passions of young delight! The great sea gave up its deep to them; -great forests and trackless jungles their wonderful growths; kings’ -palaces and queens’ coffers their rarest treasures; the ages of long ago -their relics and strange legends, in stone and wood and brass and gold. - -They did not know how often people turned and stopped to look at their -two little, close-leaning figures and vivid, dark, ecstatic-eyed faces. -They certainly never chanced to see that one figure was often behind -them at a safe distance, and seemed rather to have fallen into the habit -of going where they went and listening to what they said. It was their -man, curiously enough, and it was true that he was rather a -gloomy-looking man, when one observed him well. His keen, business-like, -well-cut face had a cloud resting upon it; he looked listless and -unsmiling, even in the palaces that most stirred the children’s souls; -and, in fact, it seemed to be their odd enthusiasm which had attracted -him a little, because he was in the mood to feel none himself. He had -been within hearing distance when Meg had been telling her stories of -the Genius of the Palace of the Sea, and a faint smile had played about -his mouth for a moment. Then he had drawn a trifle nearer, still keeping -out of sight, and when they had moved he had followed them. He had been -a hard, ambitious, wealth-gaining man all his life. A few years before -he had found a new happiness, which softened him for a while, and made -his world seem a brighter thing. Then a black sorrow had come upon him, -and everything had changed. He had come to the Enchanted City, not as -the children had come, because it shone before them, a radiant joy, but -because he wondered if it would distract him at all. All other things -had failed; his old habits of work and scheme, his successes, his -ever-growing fortune, they were all as nothing. The world was empty to -him, and he walked about it feeling like a ghost. The little dark, vivid -faces had attracted him, he did not know why, and when he heard the -story of the Palace of the Sea, he was led on by a vague interest. - -He was near them often during the day, but it was not until late in the -afternoon that they saw him themselves, when he did not see them. They -came upon him in a quiet spot where he was sitting alone. On a seat near -him sat a young woman, resting, with a baby asleep in her arms. The -young woman was absorbed in her child, and was apparently unconscious of -him. His arms were folded and his head bent, but he was looking at her -in an absent, miserable way. It was as if she made him think of -something bitter and sad. - -Meg and Robin passed him quietly. - -[Illustration: HE WAS LOOKING AT HER IN AN ABSENT, MISERABLE WAY.] - -“I see what you meant, Meg,” Robin said. “He does look as if something -was the matter with him. I wonder what it is?” - -When they passed out of the gates at dusk, it was with worn-out bodies, -but enraptured souls. In the street-car, which they indulged in the -extravagance of taking, the tired people, sitting exhaustedly in the -seats and hanging on to straps, looked with a sort of wonder at them, -their faces shone so like stars. They did not know where they were going -to sleep, and they were more than ready for lying down, but they were -happy beyond words. - -They went with the car until it reached the city’s heart, and then they -got out and walked. The streets were lighted, and the thoroughfares were -a riot of life and sound. People were going to theatres, restaurants, -and hotels, which were a blaze of electric radiance. They found -themselves limping a little, but they kept stoutly on, holding firmly to -the satchel. - -“We needn’t be afraid of going anywhere, however poor it looks,” Robin -said, with a grave little elderly air. He was curiously grave for his -years, sometimes. “Anybody can see we have nothing to steal. I think any -one would know that we only want to go to bed.” - -It was a queer place they finally hit upon. It was up a side street, -which was poorly lighted, and where the houses were all shabby and -small. On the steps of one of them a tired-looking woman was sitting, -with a pale, old-faced boy beside her. Robin stopped before her. - -“Have you a room where my sister could sleep, and I could have a -mattress on the floor, or lie down on anything?” he said. “We can’t -afford to go anywhere where it will cost more than fifty cents each.” - -The woman looked at them indifferently. She was evidently very much worn -out with her day’s work, and discouraged by things generally. - -“I haven’t anything worth more than fifty cents, goodness knows,” she -answered. “You must be short of money to come here. I’ve never thought -of having roomers.” - -“We’re poor,” said Robin, “and we know we can’t have anything but a poor -room. If we can lie down, we are so tired we shall go to sleep anywhere. -We’ve been at the Fair all day.” - -The pale little old-faced boy leaned forward, resting his arm on his -mother’s knee. They saw that he was a very poor little fellow, indeed, -with a hunch back. - -“Mother,” he said, “let ’em stay; I’ll sleep on the floor.” - -The woman gave a dreary half laugh, and got up from the step. “He’s -crazy about the Fair,” she said. “We hain’t no money to spend on Fairs, -and he’s most wild about it. You can stay here to-night, if you want -to.” - -She made a sign to them to follow her. The hunchback boy rose too, and -went into the dark passage after them. He seemed to regard them with a -kind of hunger in his look. - -They went up the narrow, steep staircase. It was only lighted by a dim -gleam from a room below, whose door was open. The balustrades were -rickety, and some of them were broken out. It was a forlorn enough -place. The hunchback boy came up the steps, awkwardly, behind them. It -was as if he wanted to see what would happen. - -They went up two flights of the crooked, crazy stairs, and at the top of -the second flight the woman opened a door. - -“That’s all the place there is,” she said. “It isn’t anything more than -a place to lie down in, you see. I can put a mattress on the floor for -you, and your sister can sleep in the cot.” - -“That’s all we want,” replied Robin. - -But it was a poor place. A room, both small and bare, and with broken -windows. There was nothing in it but the cot and a chair. - -“Ben sleeps here,” the woman said. “If I couldn’t make him a place on -the floor, near me, I couldn’t let it to you.” Meg turned and looked at -Ben. He was gazing at her with a nervous interest. - -“We’re much obliged to you,” she said. - -“It’s all right,” he said, with eager shyness. “Do you want some water -to wash yourselves with? I can bring you up a tin basin and a jug. You -can set it on the chair.” - -“Thank you,” they both said at once. And Robin added, “We want washing -pretty badly.” - -Ben turned about and went down-stairs for the water as if he felt a sort -of excitement in doing the service. These two children, who looked as -poor as himself, set stirring strange thoughts in his small, unnourished -brain. - -He brought back the tin basin and water, a piece of yellow soap, and -even a coarse, rather dingy, towel. He had been so eager that he was out -of breath when he returned, but he put the basin on the chair and the -tin jug beside it, with a sort of exultant look in his poor face. - -“Thank you,” said Meg again; “thank you, Ben.” - -She could not help watching him as his mother prepared the rather -wretched mattress for Robin. Once he caught the look of her big, -childish, gray eyes as it rested upon him with questioning sympathy, and -he flushed up so that even by the light of the little smoky lamp she saw -it. When the woman had finished she and the boy went away and left them, -and they stood a moment looking at each other. They were both thinking -of the same thing, but somehow they did not put it into words. - -“We’ll wash off the dust first,” said Robin, “and then we’ll eat some of -the things we have left from what the woman gave us. And then we’ll go -to bed, and we shall drop just like logs.” - -And this they did, and it was certainly a very short time before the -smoky little lamp was out, and each had dropped like a log and lay -stretched in the darkness, with a sense of actual ecstasy in limbs laid -down to rest and muscles relaxed for sleeping. - -“Robin,” said Meg, drowsily, through the dark that divided them, -“everybody in the world has something to give to somebody else.” - -“I’m thinking that, too,” Robin answered, just as sleepily; “nobody is -so poor—that—he—hasn’t anything. That—boy——” - -“He let us have his hard bed,” Meg murmured, “and he—hasn’t seen——” - -But her voice died away, and Robin would not have heard her if she had -said more. And they were both fast, fast asleep. - - - - - XIV - - -It would have been a loud sound which would have awakened them during -those deep sleeping hours of the night. They did not even stir on their -poor pillows when, long after midnight, there was the noise of heavy -drunken footsteps and heavy drunken stumbling in the passage below, and -then the raising of a man’s rough voice, and the upsetting of chairs and -the slamming of doors, mingled with the expostulations of the woman, -whose husband had come home in something worse than his frequent -ill-fashion. They slept sweetly through it all, but when the morning -came, and hours of unbroken rest had made their slumbers lighter, and -the sunshine streamed in through the broken windows, they were called -back to the world by loud and angry sounds. - -“What is it?” said Meg, sitting bolt upright and rubbing her eyes; -“somebody’s shouting.” - -“And somebody’s crying,” said Robin, sitting up too, but more slowly. - -It was quite clear to them, as soon as they were fully awake, that both -these things were happening. A man seemed to be quarrelling below. They -could hear him stamping about and swearing savagely. And they could hear -the woman’s voice, which sounded as if she were trying to persuade him -to do or leave undone something. They could not hear her words, but she -was crying, and somebody else was crying, too, and they knew it was the -boy with the little old face and the hump-back. - -“I suppose it’s the woman’s husband,” said Meg. “I’m glad he wasn’t here -last night.” - -“I wonder if he knows we are here,” said Robin, listening anxiously. - -It was plain that he did know. They heard him stumbling up the -staircase, grumbling and swearing as he came, and he was coming up to -their room, it was evident. - -“What shall we do?” exclaimed Meg, in a whisper. - -“Wait,” Robin answered, breathlessly. “We can’t do anything.” - -The heavy feet blundered up the short second flight and blundered to -their door. It seemed that the man had not slept off his drunken fit. He -struck the door with his fist. - -“Hand out that dollar,” he shouted. “When my wife takes roomers I’m -going to be paid. Hand it out.” - -They heard the woman hurrying up the stairs after him. She was out of -breath with crying, and there was a choking sound in her voice when she -spoke to them through the door. - -“You’d better let him have it,” she said. - -“I guess they’d better,” said the man, roughly. “Who’d’ they suppose -owns the house?” - -Robin got up and took a dollar from their very small store, which was -hidden in the lining of his trousers. He went to the door and opened it -a little, and held the money out. - -“Here it is,” he said. - -The man snatched it out of his hand and turned away, and went stumbling -down stairs, still growling. The woman stood a minute on the landing, -and they heard her make a pitiful sort of sound, half sob, half sniff. - -Meg sat up in bed, with her chin on her hands, and glared like a little -lioness. - -“What do you think of _that_?” she said. - -“He’s a devil!” said Robin, with terseness. And he was conscious of no -impropriety. “I wanted that boy to have it, and _go_.” It was not -necessary to say where. - -“So did I,” answered Meg. “And I believe his mother would have given it -to him, too.” - -They heard the man leave the house a few minutes later, and then it did -not take them long to dress and go down the narrow, broken-balustraded -stairs again. As they descended the first flight they saw the woman -cooking something over the stove in her kitchen, and as she moved about -they saw her brush her apron across her eyes. - -The squalid street was golden with the early morning sunshine, which is -such a joyful thing, and, in the full, happy flood of it, a miserable -little figure sat crouched on the steps. It was the boy Ben, and they -saw that he looked paler than he had looked the night before, and his -little face looked older. His elbow was on his knee and his cheek on his -hand, and there were wet marks on his cheeks. - -A large lump rose up in Meg’s throat. - -“I know what’s the matter,” she whispered to Robin. - -“So—so do I,” Robin answered, rather unsteadily. “And he’s poorer than -anybody else. It _ought_ not to go by him.” - -“No, no,” said Meg. “It oughtn’t.” - -She walked straight to the threshold and sat down on the step beside -him. She was a straightforward child, and she was too much moved to -stand on ceremony. She sat down quite close by the poor little fellow, -and put her hand on his arm. - -“Never you mind,” she said. “Never you mind.” And her throat felt so -full that for a few seconds she could say nothing more. - -Robin stood against the door post. The effect of this was to make his -small jaw square itself. - -“Don’t mind us at all,” he said. “We—we know.” - -The little fellow looked at Meg and then up at him. In that look he saw -that they did know. - -“Mother was going to give that dollar to me,” he said, brokenly. “I was -going to the Fair on it. _Everybody_ is going, everybody is talking -about it, and thinking about it! Nobody’s been talking of nothing else -for months and months! The streets are full of people on their way! And -they all pass me by.” - -He rubbed his sleeve across his forlorn face and swallowed hard. - -“There’s pictures in the shops,” he went on, “and flags flying. And -everything’s going that way, and me staying behind!” - -Two of the large, splendid drops, which had sometimes gathered on Meg’s -eyelashes and fallen on the straw, when she had been telling stories in -the barn, fell now upon her lap. - -“Robin!” she said. - -Robin stood and stared very straight before him for a minute, and then -his eyes turned and met hers. - -“We’re very poor,” he said to her, “but _everybody_ has—has something.” - -“We couldn’t leave him behind,” Meg said, “we _couldn’t_! Let’s think.” -And she put her head down, resting her elbows on her knee and clutching -her forehead with her supple, strong little hands. - -“What can we do without?” said Robin. “Let’s do without something.” - -Meg lifted her head. - -“We will eat nothing but the eggs for breakfast,” she said, “and go -without lunch—if we can. Perhaps we can’t—but we’ll try. And we will not -go into some of the places we have to pay to go into. I will make up -stories about them for you. And, Robin, it _is_ true—everybody has -something to give. That’s what I have—the stories I make up. It’s -_something_—just a little.” - -“It isn’t so little,” Robin answered; “it fills in the empty place, -Meg?” with a question in his voice. - -She answered with a little nod, and then put her hand on Ben’s arm -again. During their rapid interchange of words he had been gazing at -them in a dazed, uncomprehending way. To his poor little starved nature -they seemed so strong and different from himself that there was -something wonderful about them. Meg’s glowing, dark little face quite -made his weak heart beat as she turned it upon him. - -“We are not much better off than you are,” she said, “but we think we’ve -got enough to take you into the grounds. You let us have your bed. Come -along with us.” - -“To—to—the Fair?” he said, tremulously. - -“Yes,” she answered, “and when we get in I’ll try and think up things to -tell you and Robin, about the places we can’t afford to go into. We can -go into the Palaces for nothing.” - -“Palaces!” he gasped, his wide eyes on her face. - -She laughed. - -“That’s what we call them,” she said; “that’s what they are. It’s part -of a story. I’ll tell it to you as we go.” - -“Oh!” he breathed out, with a sort of gasp, again. - -He evidently did not know how to express himself. His hands trembled, -and he looked half frightened. - -“If you’ll do it,” he said, “I’ll remember you all my life! I’ll—I’ll—if -it wasn’t for father I know mother would let you sleep here every night -for nothing. And I’d give you my bed and be glad to do it, I would. I’ll -be so thankful to you. I hain’t got nothin’—nothin’—but I’ll be that -thankful—I”—there was a kind of hysterical break in his voice—“let me go -and tell mother,” he said, and he got up stumblingly and rushed into the -house. - -Meg and Robin followed him to the kitchen, as excited as he was. The -woman had just put a cracked bowl of something hot on the table, and as -he came in she spoke to him. - -[Illustration: “TO—TO—THE FAIR?” HE SAID, TREMULOUSLY.] - -“Your mush is ready,” she said. “Come and eat while it’s hot.” - -“Mother,” he cried out, “they are going to take me in. I’m going! -They’re going to take me!” - -The woman stopped short and looked at the twins, who stood in the -doorway. It seemed as if her chin rather trembled. - -“You’re going—” she began, and broke off. “You’re as poor as he is,” she -ended. “You must be, or you wouldn’t have come here to room.” - -“We’re as poor in one way,” said Meg, “but we worked, and saved money to -come. It isn’t much, but we can do without something that would cost -fifty cents, and that will pay for his ticket.” - -The woman’s chin trembled more still. - -“Well,” she said, ”I—I—O Lord!” And she threw her apron over her head -and sat down suddenly. - -Meg went over to her, not exactly knowing why. - -“We could not bear to go ourselves,” she said. “And he is like us.” - -She was thinking, as she spoke, that this woman and her boy were very -fond of each other. The hands holding the apron were trembling as his -had done. They dropped as suddenly as they had been thrown up. The woman -lifted her face eagerly. - -“What were you thinking of going without?” she asked. “Was it things to -eat?” - -“We—we’ve got some hard-boiled eggs,” faltered Meg, a little guiltily. - -“There’s hot mush in the pan,” said the woman. “There’s nothing to eat -with it, but it’s healthier than cold eggs. Sit down and eat some.” - -And they did, and in half an hour they left the poor house, feeling -full-fed and fresh. With them went Ben—his mother standing on the steps -looking after him—his pale old face almost flushed and young, as it set -itself toward the City Beautiful. - - - - - XV - - -Before they entered the Court of Honor Meg stopped them both. She was -palpitating with excitement. - -“Robin,” she said, “let us make him shut his eyes. Then you can take one -of his hands and I can take the other, and we will lead him. And when we -have taken him to the most heavenly place, he shall look—suddenly!” - -“I should like that,” said Ben, tremulous with anticipation. - -“All right,” said Robin. - -By this time it was as if they had been friends all their lives. They -knew each other. They had not ceased talking a moment since they set -out, but it had not been about the Fair. Meg had decided that nothing -should be described beforehand; that all the entrancement of beauty -should burst upon Ben’s hungry soul, as Paradise bursts upon translated -spirits. - -“I don’t want it to be gradual,” she said, anxiously. “I want it to be -_sudden_! It can be gradual after.” - -She was an artist and an epicure in embryo, this child. She tasted her -joys with a delicate palate, and lost no flavor of them. The rapture of -yesterday was intensified ten-fold to-day, because she felt it throbbing -anew in this frail body beside her, in which Nature had imprisoned a -soul as full of longings as her own, but not so full of power. - -They took Ben by either hand, and led him with the greatest care. He -shut his eyes tight, and walked between them. People who glanced at them -smiled, recognizing the time-honored and familiar child trick. They did -not know that this time it was something more than that. - -“The trouble is,” Meg said in a low voice to Robin, “I don’t know which -is the most heavenly place to stand. Sometimes I think it is at one end, -and sometimes at the other, and sometimes at the side.” - -They led their charge for some minutes indefinitely. Sometimes they -paused and looked about them, speaking in undertones. Ben was rigidly -faithful, and kept his eyes shut. As they hesitated for a moment near -one of the buildings, a man who was descending the steps looked in their -direction, and his look was one of recognition. It was the man who had -watched them the day before, and he paused upon the steps, interested -again, and conscious of being curious. - -“What are they going to do?” he said to himself. “They are going to do -something. Where did they pick up the other one—poor little chap!” - -Meg had been looking very thoughtful during that moment of hesitancy. -She spoke, and he was near enough to hear her. - -“He shall open them where he can hear the water splashing in the -fountain,” she said. “I think that’s the best.” - -It seemed that Robin thought so, too. They turned and took their way to -the end of the Court, where the dome lifted itself, wonderful, against -the sky, and a splendor of rushing water, from which magnificent -sea-monsters rose, stood grand before. - -Their man followed them. He had had a bad night, and had come out into a -dark world. The streams of pleasure-seekers, the gayly fluttering flags, -the exhilaration in the very air seemed to make his world blacker and -more empty. A year before he had planned to see this wonder, with the -one soul on earth who would have been most thrilled, and who would have -made him most thrill, to its deepest and highest meaning. Green grass -and summer roses were waving over the earth that had shut in all dreams -like these, for him. As he wandered about, he had told himself that he -had been mad to come and see it all, so alone. Sometimes he turned away -from the crowd, and sat in some quiet corner of palace or fairy garden; -and it was because he was forced to do it, for it was at times when he -was in no condition to be looked at by careless passers-by. - -He had never been particularly fond of children; but somehow these two -waifs, with their alert faces and odd independence, had wakened his -interest. He was conscious of rather wanting to know where they had come -from and what they would do next. The bit of the story of the Genius of -the Palace of the Sea had attracted him. He had learned to love stories -from the one who should have seen with him the Enchanted City. She had -been a story lover, and full of fancies. - -He followed the trio to the end of the great Court. When they reached -there, three pairs of cheeks were flushed, and the eyes that were open -were glowing. Meg and Robin chose a spot of ground, and stopped. - -“Now,” said Meg, “open them—suddenly!” - -The boy opened them. The man saw the look that flashed into his face. It -was a strange, quivering look. Palaces, which seemed of pure marble, -surrounded him. He had never even dreamed of palaces. White stairways -rose from the lagoon, leading to fair, open portals the wondering world -passed through to splendors held within. A great statue of gold towered -noble and marvellous, with uplifted arms holding high the emblems of its -spirit and power, and at the end of this vista, through the archway, and -between the line of columns, bearing statues poised against the -background of sky, he caught glimpses of the lake’s scintillating blue. - -He uttered a weird little sound. It was part exclamation, and a bit of a -laugh, cut short by something like a nervous sob, which did not know -what to do with itself. - -“Oh!” he said. And then, “Oh!” again. And then “I—I don’t know—what -it’s—like!” And he cleared his throat and stared, and Meg saw his narrow -chest heave up and down. - -“It isn’t _like_ anything, but—but something we’ve dreamed of, perhaps,” -said Meg, gazing in ecstasy with him. - -“No—no!” answered Ben. “But I’ve never dreamed like it.” - -Meg put her hand on his shoulder. - -“But you will now,” she said. “You will now.” - -And their man had been near enough to hear, and he came to them. - -“Good morning,” he said. “You’re having another day of it, I see.” - -Meg and Robin looked up at him, radiant. They were both in good enough -mood to make friends. They felt friends with everybody. - -“Good morning,” they answered; and Robin added, “We’re going to come -every day as long as we can make our money last.” - -“That’s a good enough idea,” said their man. “Where are your father and -mother?” - -Meg lifted her solemn, black-lashed eyes to his. She was noticing again -about the dreary look in his face. - -“They died nearly four years ago,” she answered, for Robin. - -“Who is with you?” asked the man, meeting her questioning gaze with a -feeling that her great eyes were oddly thoughtful for a child’s, and -that there was a look in them he had seen before in a pair of eyes -closed a year ago. It gave him an almost startled feeling. - -“Nobody is with us,” Meg said, “except Ben.” - -“You came alone?” said the man. - -“Yes.” - -He looked at her for a moment in silence, and then turned away and -looked across the Court to where the lake gleamed through the colonnade. - -“So did I,” he said, reflectively. “So did I. Quite alone.” - -Meg and Robin glanced at each other. - -“Yesterday Rob and I came by ourselves,” said Meg next, and she said it -gently. “But we were not lonely; and to-day we have Ben.” - -The man turned his eyes on the boy. - -“You’re Ben, are you?” he said. - -“Yes,” Ben answered. “And but for them I couldn’t never have seen -it—never!” - -“Why?” the man asked. “Almost everybody can see it.” - -“But not me,” said Ben. “And I wanted to more than any one—seemed like -to me. And when they roomed at our house last night, mother was going to -give me the fifty cents, but—but father—father, he took it away from us. -And they brought me.” - -Then the man turned on Robin. - -“Have you plenty of money?” he asked, unceremoniously. - -“No,” said Rob. - -“They’re as poor as I am,” put in Ben. “They couldn’t afford to room -anywhere but with poor people.” - -“But everybody—” Meg began impulsively, and then stopped, remembering -that it was not Robin she was talking to. - -“But everybody—what?” said the man. - -It was Robin who answered for her this time. - -“She said that last night,” he explained, with a half shy laugh, “that -everybody had something they could give to somebody else.” - -“Oh, well, it isn’t always money, of course, or anything big,” said Meg, -hurriedly. “It might be something that is ever so little.” - -The man laughed, but his eyes seemed to be remembering something as he -looked over the lagoon again. - -“That’s a pretty good thing to think,” he said. “Now,” turning on Meg -rather suddenly, “I wonder what you have to give to _me_.” - -“I don’t know,” she answered, perhaps a trifle wistfully. “The thing I -give to Rob and Ben is a very little one.” - -“She makes up things to tell us about the places we can’t pay to go -into, or don’t understand,” said Robin. “It’s not as little as she -thinks it is.” - -“Well,” said the man, “look here! Perhaps that’s what you have to give -to me. You came to this place alone and so did I. I believe you’re -enjoying yourselves more than I am. You’re going to take Ben about and -tell him stories. Suppose you take me!” - -“You!” Meg exclaimed. “But you’re a man, and you know all about it, I -dare say; and I only tell things I make up—fairy stories, and other -things. A man wouldn’t care for them. He—he knows.” - -“He knows too much, perhaps—that’s the trouble,” said the man. “A fairy -or so might do me good. I’m not acquainted enough with them. And if I -know things you don’t—perhaps that’s what I have to give to _you_.” - -“Why,” said Meg, her eyes growing as she looked up at his odd, clever -face, “do you want to go about with us?” - -[Illustration: “TAKE ME WITH YOU.”] - -“Yes,” said the man, with a quick, decided nod, “I believe that’s just -what I want to do. I’m lonelier than you two. At least, you are -together. Come on, children,” but it was to Meg he held out his hand. -“Take me with you.” - -And, bewildered as she was, Meg found herself giving her hand to him and -being led away, Robin and Ben close beside them. - - - - - XVI - - -It was such a strange thing—so unlike the things of every day, and so -totally an unexpected thing, that for a little while they all three had -a sense of scarcely knowing what to do with themselves. If Robin and Meg -had not somehow rather liked the man, and vaguely felt him friendly, and -if there had not been in their impressionable minds that fancy about his -being far from as happy as the other people of the crowds looked, it is -more than probable that they would not have liked their position, and -would have felt that it might spoil their pleasure. - -But they were sympathetic children, and they had been lonely and sad -enough themselves to be moved by a sadness in others, even if it was an -uncomprehended one. - -As she walked by the man’s side, still letting her hand remain in his, -Meg kept giving him scrutinizing looks aside, and trying in her way to -read him. He was a man just past middle life, he was powerful and -well-built, and had keen, and at the same time rather unhappy-looking, -blue eyes, with brows and lashes as black as Rob’s and her own. There -was something strong in his fine-looking, clean-shaven face, and the -hand which held hers had a good, firm grasp, and felt like a hand which -had worked in its time. - -As for the man himself, he was trying an experiment. He had been -suddenly seized with a desire to try it, and see how it would result. He -was not sure that it would be a success, but if it proved one it might -help to rid him of gloom he would be glad to be relieved of. He felt it -rather promising when Meg went at once to the point and asked him a -practical question. - -“You don’t know our names?” she said. - -“You don’t know mine,” he answered. “It’s John Holt. You can call me -that.” - -“John Holt,” said Meg. “Mr. John Holt.” - -The man laughed. Her grave, practical little air pleased him. - -“Say John Holt, without the handle to it,” he said. “It sounds well.” - -Meg looked at him inquiringly. Though he had laughed, he seemed to mean -what he said. - -“It’s queer, of course,” she said, “because we don’t know each other -well; but I can do it, if you like.” - -“I do like,” he said, and he laughed again. - -“Very well,” said Meg. “My name’s Margaret Macleod, I’m called Meg for -short. My brother’s name is Robin, and Ben’s is Ben Nowell. Where shall -we go first?” - -“You are the leader of the party,” he answered, his face beginning to -brighten a little. “Where shall it be?” - -“The Palace of the Genius of the Flowers,” she said. - -“Is that what it is called?” he asked. - -“That’s what we call it,” she explained. “That’s part of the fairy -story. _We_ are part of a fairy story, and all these are palaces that -the Genii built for the Great Magician.” - -“That’s first-rate,” he said. “Just tell us about it. Ben and I have not -heard.” - -At first she had wondered if she could tell her stories to a grown-up -person, but there was something in his voice and face that gave her the -feeling that she could. She laughed a little when she began; but he -listened with enjoyment that was so plain, and Ben, walking by her side, -looked up with such eager, enraptured, and wondering eyes, that she went -on bravely. It grew, as stories will, in being told, and it was better -than it had been the day before. Robin himself saw that, and leaned -towards her as eagerly as Ben. - -By the time they entered the Palace of the Flowers and stood among the -flame of colors, and beneath the great palm fronds swaying under the -crystal globe that was its dome, she had warmed until she was all aglow, -and as full of fancies as the pavilions were of blossoms. - -As she dived into the story of the Genius who strode through tropical -forests and deep jungles, over purple moors and up mountain sides, where -strange-hued pale or vivid things grew in tangles, or stood in the sun -alone, John Holt became of the opinion that his experiment would be a -success. It was here that he began to find he had gifts to give. She -asked him questions; Robin and Ben asked him questions; the three drew -close to him, and hung on his every word. - -“You know the things and the places where they grow,” Meg said. “We have -never seen anything. We can only try to imagine. You can tell us.” And -he did tell them; and as they went from court to pavilion, surrounded by -sumptuous bloom and sumptuous leafage and sumptuous fragrance, the three -beginning to cling to him, to turn to him with every new discovery, and -to forget he was a stranger, he knew that he was less gloomy than he had -been before, and that somehow this thing seemed worth doing. - -And in this way they went from place to place. As they had seen beauties -and wonders the day before, they saw wonders and beauties to-day, but -to-day their pleasure had a flavor new to them. For the first time in -years, since they had left their little seat at their own fireside, they -were not alone, and some one seemed to mean to look after them. John -Holt was an eminently practical person, and when they left the Palace of -the Flowers they began vaguely to realize that, stranger or not, he had -taken charge of them. It was evident that he was in the habit of taking -charge of people and things. He took charge of the satchel. It appeared -that he knew where it was safe to leave it. - -“Can we get it at lunch time?” Robin asked, with some anxiety. - -“You can get it when you want it,” said John Holt. - -A little later he looked at Ben’s pale, small face scrutinizingly. - -“Look here,” he said, “you’re tired.” And without any further question -he called up a rolling-chair. - -“Get into that,” he said. - -“Me?” said Ben, a little alarmed. - -“Yes.” - -And, almost a shade paler at the thought of such grandeur, Ben got in, -and fell back with a luxurious sigh. - -And at midday, when they were beginning to feel ravenous, though no one -mentioned the subject, he asked Meg a blunt question. - -“Where did you eat your lunch yesterday?” he asked. - -Meg flushed a little, feeling that hospitality demanded that they should -share the remaining eggs with such a companion, and she was afraid there -would be very few to offer, when Ben was taken into consideration. - -“We went to a quiet place on the Wooded Island,” she said, “and ate it -with the roses. We pretended they invited us. We had only hard-boiled -eggs and a sandwich each; but a kind woman gave us something of her -own.” - -“We brought the eggs from home,” explained Rob. “We have some chickens -of our own, who laid them. We thought that would be cheaper than buying -things.” - -“Oh!” said John Holt. “So you’ve been living on hard-boiled eggs. Got -any left?” - -“A few,” Meg answered. “They’re in the satchel. We shall have to go and -get it.” - -“Come along, then,” said John Holt. “Pretty hungry by this time, aren’t -you?” - -“Yes,” said Meg, with heartfelt frankness, “we are!” - -It was astonishing how much John Holt had found out about them during -this one morning. They did not know themselves how much their answers to -his occasional questions had told him. He had not known himself, when he -asked the questions, how much their straightforward, practical replies -would reveal. They had not sentimentalized over their friendless -loneliness, but he had found himself realizing what desolate, unnoticed, -and uncared-for things their lives were. They had not told him how they -had tired their young bodies with work too heavy for them, but he had -realized it. In his mind there had risen a picture of the Straw Parlor, -under the tent-like roof of the barn, with these two huddled together in -the cold, buried in the straw, while they talked over their desperate -plans. They had never thought of calling themselves strong and -determined, and clear of wit, but he knew how strong and firm of purpose -and endurance two creatures so young and unfriended, and so poor, must -have been to form a plan so bold, and carry it out in the face of the -obstacles of youth and inexperience, and empty pockets and hands. He had -laughed at the story of the Treasure saved in pennies, and hidden deep -in the straw; but as he had laughed he had thought, with a quick, soft -throb of his heart, that the woman he had loved and lost would have -laughed with him, with tears in the eyes which Meg’s reminded him of. He -somehow felt as if she might be wandering about with them in their City -Beautiful this morning, they were so entirely creatures she would have -been drawn to, and longed to make happier. - -He liked their fancy of making their poor little feast within scent of -the roses. It was just such a fancy as She might have had herself. And -he wanted to see what they had to depend on. He knew it must be little, -and it touched him to know that, little as they had, they meant to share -it with their poorer friend. - -They went for the satchel, and when they did so they began to calculate -as to what they could add to its contents. They were few things, and -poor ones. - -He did not sit down, but stood by and watched them for a moment, when, -having reached their sequestered nook, they began to spread out their -banquet. It was composed of the remnant eggs, some bread, and a slice of -cheese. It looked painfully scant, and Meg had an anxious eye. - -“Is that all?” asked John Holt, abruptly. - -“Yes,” said Meg. “We shall have to make it do.” - -“My Lord!” ejaculated John Holt, suddenly, in his blunt fashion. And he -turned round and walked away. - -“Where’s he gone?” exclaimed Ben, timidly. - -But they none of them could guess. Nice as he had been, he had a brusque -way, and, perhaps, he meant to leave them. - -But by the time they had divided the eggs, and the bread and cheese, and -had fairly begun, he came marching back. He had a basket on his arm, and -two bottles stuck out of one coat pocket, while a parcel protruded from -the other. He came and threw himself down on the grass beside them, and -opened the basket. It was full of good things. - -“I’m going to have lunch with you,” he said, “and I have a pretty big -appetite, so I’ve brought you something to eat. You can’t tramp about on -that sort of thing.” - -The basket they had seen the day before had been a poor thing compared -to this. The contents of this would have been a feast for much more -fastidious creatures than three ravenous children. There were chickens -and sandwiches and fruit; the bottles held lemonade, and the package in -the coat pocket was a box of candy. - -“We—never had such good things in our lives,” Meg gasped, amazed. - -“Hadn’t you?” said John Holt, with a kind, and even a happy, grin. -“Well, pitch in.” - - - - - XVII - - -What a feast it was—what a feast! They were so hungry, they were so -happy, they were so rejoiced! And John Holt watched them as if he had -never enjoyed himself so much before. He laughed, he made jokes, he -handed out good things, he poured out lemonade. - -“Let’s drink to the Great Magician!” he said, filling the little glasses -he had brought; and he made them drink it standing, as a toast. In all -the grounds that day there was no such a party, it was so exhilarated -and amazed at itself. Little Ben looked and ate and laughed as if the -lemonade had gone to his head. - -“Oh, my!” he said, “if mother could see me!” - -“We’ll bring her to-morrow,” said John Holt. - -“Are you—” faltered Meg, looking at him with wide eyes, “are you coming -again to-morrow?” - -“Yes,” John Holt answered, “and you are coming with me; and we’ll come -every day until you’ve seen it all—if you three will pilot me around.” - -“You must be very rich, John Holt,” said Meg. She had found out that it -was his whim to want her to call him so. - -“I have plenty of money,” he said, “if that’s being rich. Oh, yes, I’ve -got money enough! I’ve more land than Aunt Matilda.” - -And then it was that suddenly Robin remembered something. - -“I believe,” he said, “that I’ve heard Aunt Matilda speak about you to -Jones. I seem to remember your name. You have the biggest farm in -Illinois, and you have houses and houses in town. Meg, don’t you -remember—when he got married, and everybody talked about how rich he -was?” - -And Meg did remember. She looked at him softly, and thought she knew why -he had seemed gloomy, for she remembered that this rich and envied man’s -wife had had a little child and died suddenly. And she had even heard -once that it had almost driven him mad, because he had been fond of her. - -“Are you—that one?” she said. - -“Yes,” he answered, “I’m the one who got married.” And the cloud fell on -his face again, and for a minute or so rested there. For he thought this -thing which had happened to him was cruel and hideous, and he had never -ceased to rebel against it bitterly. - -Meg drew a little closer to him, but she said no more about what she -knew he was thinking of. She was a clever little thing, and knew this -was not the time. - -And after they had eaten of the good things, until hunger seemed a thing -of the past, the afternoon began as a fairy story, indeed. Little by -little they began to realize that John Holt was their good and powerful -giant, for it seemed that he was not only ready to do everything for -them, but was rich enough. - -“Have you been to the Midway Plaisance?” he asked them. He felt very -sure, however, that they had not, or that, if they had, with that scant -purse, they had not seen what they longed to see. - -“No, we haven’t,” said Meg. “We thought we would save it until we had -seen so many other things that we should not mind so _very_ much only -seeing the outsides of places. We knew we should have to make up stories -all the time.” - -“We won’t save it,” said John Holt. “We’ll go now. We will hobnob with -Bedouins and Japanese and Turks, and shake hands with Amazons and -Indians; we’ll ride on camels and go to the Chinese Theatre. Come -along.” - -And to this Arabian Nights’ Entertainment he took them all. They felt as -if he were a prince. And oh, the exciting strangeness of it! To be in -such a place and amid such marvels, with a man who seemed to set no -limit to the resources of his purse. They never had been even near a -person who spent money as if it were made for spending, and the good -things of life were made to be bought by it. What John Holt spent was -only what other people with full purses spent in the Midway Plaisance, -but to Meg and Robin and Ben it seemed that he poured forth money in -torrents. They looked at him with timorous wonder and marvelling -gratitude. It seemed that he meant them to see everything and to do -everything. They rode on camels down a street in Cairo, they talked to -chiefs of the desert, they listened to strange music, they heard strange -tongues, and tasted strange confections. Robin and Ben went about like -creatures in a delightful dream. Every few minutes during the first hour -Robin would sidle close to Meg, and clutch her dress or her hand with a -gasp of rapture. - -“Oh, Meg!” he would say, “and yesterday we were so poor! And now we are -seeing _everything_!” - -And when John Holt heard him, he would laugh half to himself; a laugh -with a touch of pleasant exultation in it, and no gloom at all. He had -found something to distract him at last. - -He liked to watch Meg’s face, as they went from one weirdly foreign -place to another. Her eyes were immense with delight, and her face had -the flush of an Indian peach. Once she stopped suddenly, in such a glow -of strange delight that her eyes were full of other brightness than the -shining of her pleasure. - -“Fairy stories _do_ happen!” she said. “You have made one! It was a -fairy story yesterday—but _now_—oh! just think how like a fairy king you -are, and what you are giving to us! It will be enough to make stories of -forever!” - -He laughed again. She found out in time that he often laughed that short -half-laugh when he was moved by something. He had had a rough sort of -life, successful as it had been, and it was not easy for him to express -all he felt. - -“That’s all right,” he said, “that’s just as it should be. But you are -giving something to me, too—you three.” - -And so they were, and it was not a little thing. - -Their afternoon was a thing of which they could never have dreamed and -for which they could never have hoped. Before it was half over they -began to feel that not only John Holt was a prince, but that by some -magic metamorphosis they had become princes themselves. It seemed that -nothing in that City Beautiful was to be closed to them. It was John -Holt’s habit to do things in a thorough, business-like way, and he did -this thing in a manner which was a credit to his wit and good sense. - -Ben, who had never been taken care of in his life, was taken about in a -chair, and looked after in a way that made him wonder if he were not -dreaming, and if he should not be wakened presently by the sound of his -father’s drunken voice. - -Robin found himself more than once rubbing his forehead in a puzzled -fashion. - -Meg felt rather as if she had become a princess. Somehow, she and John -Holt seemed to have known each other a long time. He seemed to like to -keep her near him, and always kept his eye on her, to see if she was -enjoying herself, and was comfortable, or tired. She found herself being -wheeled by Ben, when John Holt decided it was time for her to rest. He -walked by her and talked to her, answering all her questions. More than -once it flashed into her mind that it would be very awful when all this -joy was over, and they parted, as they would. But they were going to see -him to-morrow, he had said. - -It seemed as if they marched from one climax of new experience to -another. - -“You’re going to dine with me,” he announced. “You’ve had enough -hard-boiled eggs. And we’ll see the illuminations afterwards.” - -He took them to what seemed to them a dining-place for creatures of -another world, it was so brilliant with light, so decorated, so -gorgeous. Servants moved to and fro, electric globes gleamed, palms and -flowers added to the splendor of color and brightness. John Holt gave -them an excellent dinner; they thought it was a banquet. Ben kept his -eyes on John Holt’s face at every mouthful—he felt as if he might vanish -away. He looked as if he had done this every day of his life. He called -the waiters as if he knew no awe of any human being, and the waiters -flew to obey him. - -In the evening he took them to see the City Beautiful as it looked at -night. It was set, it seemed to them, with myriads of diamonds, all -alight. Endless chains of jewels seemed strung and wound about it. The -Palace of the Flowers held up a great crystal of light glowing against -the dark blue of the sky, towers and domes were crowned and diademed, -thousands of jewels hung among the masses of leaves, or reflected -themselves, sparkling, in the darkness of the lagoons, fountains of -molten jewels sprung up, and flamed and changed. The City Beautiful -stood out whiter and more spirit-like than ever, in the pure radiance of -these garlands of clearest flame. - -When first they came out upon it Robin involuntarily pressed close to -Meg, and their twin hands clasped each other. - -“Oh, Meg!” cried Robin. - -“Oh, Robin!” breathed Meg, and she turned to John Holt and caught his -hand too. - -“Oh, John Holt!” she said; “John Holt!” - -Very primitive and brief exclamations of joy, but somehow human beings -have uttered them just as simply in all great moments through centuries. - -John Holt knew just the degree of rapturous feeling they expressed, and -he held Meg’s hand close and with a warm grasp. - -They saw the marvellous fairy spectacle from all points and from all -sides. Led by John Holt, they lost no view and no beauty. They feasted -full of all the delight of it; and at last he took them to a quiet -corner, where, through the trees, sparkled lights and dancing water, and -let them talk it out. - -The day had been such an incredible one, with its succession of -excitements and almost unreal pleasures, that they had actually -forgotten that the night must come. They were young enough for that -indiscretion, and when they sat down and began to realize how tired they -were, they also began to realize a number of other things. - -A little silence fell upon them. Ben’s head began to droop slightly upon -his shoulder, and John Holt’s quick eye saw it. - -“Have you had a good day?” he asked. - -“Rob,” said Meg, “when we sat in the Straw Parlor and talked about the -City Beautiful, and the people who would come to it—when we thought we -could never see it ourselves—did we ever dream that anybody—even if they -were kings and queens—could have such a day?” - -“Never,” answered Robin; “never! We didn’t know such a day was in the -world.” - -“That’s right,” said John Holt. “I’m glad it’s seemed as good as that. -Now, where did you think of spending the night?” - -Meg and Rob looked at each other. Since Rob had suggested to her in the -morning a bold thought, they had had no time to discuss the matter, but -now each one remembered the bold idea. Rob got up and came close to John -Holt. - -“This morning I thought of something,” he said, “and once again this -afternoon I thought of it. I don’t know whether we could do it, but you -could tell us. Do you think—this is such a big place and there are so -many corners we could creep into, and it’s such a fine night—do you -think we could wait until all the people are gone and then find a place -to sleep without going out of the grounds? It would save us buying the -tickets in the morning, and Ben could stay with us—I told his mother -that perhaps he might not come home—and he could have another day.” - -John Holt laughed his short laugh. - -“Were you thinking of doing that?” he said. “Well, you have plenty of -sand, anyway.” - -“Do you think we could do it?” asked Meg. “Would they find us and drive -us out?” - -John Holt laughed again. - -“Great Cæsar!” he said, “no; I don’t think they’d find you two. Luck -would be with you. But I know a plan worth two of that. I’m going to -take you all three to my hotel.” - -“A hotel?” said Meg. - -Ben lifted his sleepy head from his shoulder. - -“Yes,” said John Holt. “I can make them find corners for you, though -they’re pretty crowded. I’m not going to lose sight of you. This has -begun to be _my_ tea-party.” - -Meg looked at him with large and solemn eyes. - -“Well,” she said, “it’s a fairy story, and it’s getting fairyer and -fairyer every minute.” - -She leaned forward, with her heart quite throbbing. Because it was he -who did this splendid thing—he to whom all things seemed possible—it -actually seemed a thing to be accepted as if a magician had done it. - -“Oh, how good you are to us!” she said. “How good, and how good! And -what is the use of saying only ‘Thank you?’ I should not be surprised,” -with a touch of awe, “if you took us to a hotel built of _gold_.” - -How heartily John Holt laughed then. - -“Well, some of them ought to be, by the time this thing’s over,” he -said. “But the lights will soon be out; the people are going, and Ben’s -nearly dead. Let’s go and find a carriage.” - - - - - XVIII - - -Yes, they went home in a carriage! John Holt put them into it, and -settled back into it himself, as if comfortable cushions were only what -belonged to tired people. And he took them to one of the hotels whose -brilliantly-lighted fronts they had trudged wearily by the night before. -And they had a good supper and warm baths and delicious beds, and Meg -went to sleep with actual tears of wonder and gratitude on her lashes, -and they all three slept the sleep of Eden and dreamed the dreams of -Paradise. And in the morning they had breakfast with John Holt, in the -hotel dining-room, and a breakfast as good as the princely dinner he had -given them; and after it they all went back with him to the City -Beautiful, and the fairy story began again. For near the entrance where -they went in they actually found Ben’s mother, in a state of wonder -beyond words; for, by the use of some magic messenger, that wonderful -John Holt had sent word to her that Ben was in safe hands, and that she -must come and join him, and the money to make this possible had been in -the letter. - -Poor, tired, discouraged, down-trodden woman, how she lost her breath -when Ben threw himself upon her and poured forth his story! And what a -face she wore through all that followed! How Ben led her from triumph to -triumph, with the exultant air of one to whom the City Beautiful almost -belonged, and who, consequently, had it to bestow as a rich gift on -those who did not know it as he did. What wondering glances his mother -kept casting on his face, which had grown younger with each hour! She -had never seen him look like this before. And what glances she cast -aside at John Holt! This was one of the rich men poor people heard of. -She had never been near one of them. She had, often, rather hated them. - -Before the day was over Robin and Meg realized that this wonder was to -go on as long as there was anything of the City Beautiful they had not -seen. They were to drink deep draughts of delight as long as they were -thirsty for more. John Holt made this plain to them in his blunt, -humorous way. He was going to show them everything and share all their -pleasures, and they were to stay at the golden hotel every night. - -And John Holt was getting almost as much out of it as they were. He -wandered about alone no more; he did not feel as if he were only a -ghost, with nothing in common with the human beings passing by. In the -interest and excitement of generalship and management, and the amusement -of seeing this unspoiled freshness of his charges’ delight in all -things, the gloomy look faded out of his face, and he looked like a -different man. Once they came upon two men who seemed to know him, and -the first one who spoke to him glanced at the children in some surprise. - -“Hallo, John!” he said, “set up a family?” - -“Just what I’ve done,” answered John Holt. “Set up a family. A man’s no -right to be going around a place like this without one.” - -“How do you get on with it?” asked the other. “Find it pay?” - -“Pay!” said John Holt, with a big laugh. “Great Scott! I should say so! -It’s worth twice the price of admission!” - -“Glad of it,” said his friend, giving him a curious look. - -And as he went away Meg heard him say to his companion, - -“It was time he found something that paid—John Holt. He was in a pretty -bad way—a _pretty_ bad way.” - -As they became more and more intimate, and spoke more to each other, Meg -understood how bad a “way” he had been in. She was an observing, -old-fashioned child, and she saw many things a less sympathetic creature -might have passed by; and when John Holt discovered this—which he was -quite shrewd enough to do rather soon—he gradually began to say things -to her he would not have said to other people. She understood, somehow, -that, though the black look passed away from his face, and he laughed -and made them laugh, there was a thing that was never quite out of his -mind. She saw that pictures brought it back to him, that strains of -music did, that pretty mothers with children hurt him when they passed, -and that every now and then he would cast a broad glance over all the -whiteness and blueness and beauty and grace, and draw a long, quick -sigh—as if he were homesick for something. - -“You know,” he said once, when he did this and looked round, and found -Meg’s eyes resting yearningly upon him, “you know She was coming with -me! We planned it all. Lord! how She liked to talk of it! She said it -would be an Enchanted City—just as you did, Meg. That was one of the -first things that made me stop to listen—when I heard you say that. An -Enchanted City!” he repeated, pondering. “Lord, Lord!” - -“Well,” said Meg, with a little catch in her breath, “well, you know, -John Holt, she’s got to an Enchanted City that won’t vanish away, hasn’t -she?” - -She did not say it with any sanctified little air. Out of their own -loneliness, and the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” and her ardent fancies, the -place she and Robin had built to take refuge in was a very real thing. -It had many modern improvements upon the vagueness of harps and crowns. -There were good souls who might have been astounded and rather shocked -by it, but the children believed in it very implicitly, and found great -comfort in their confidence in its joyfulness. They thought of -themselves as walking about its streets exactly as rapturously as they -walked about this earthly City Beautiful. And because it was so real -there was a note in Meg’s voice which gave John Holt a sudden touch of -new feeling, as he looked back at her. - -“Do you suppose she is?” he said. “You believe in that, don’t you—you -believe in it?” - -Meg looked a little troubled for a moment. - -“Why,” she said, “Rob and I talk to each other and invent things about -it, just as we talked about this. We just _have_ to, you see. Perhaps we -say things that would seem very funny to religious people—I don’t think -we’re religious but—but we do _like_ it.” - -“Do you?” said John Holt. “Perhaps I should, too. You shall tell me some -stories about it, and you shall put Her there. If I could feel as if she -were somewhere!” - -“Oh,” said Meg, “she must be somewhere, you know. She couldn’t _go out_, -John Holt.” - -He cast his broad glance all around, and caught his breath, as if -remembering. - -“Lord, Lord!” he said. “No! _She_ couldn’t go out!” - -Meg knew afterwards why he said this with such force. “She” had been a -creature who was so full of life, and of the joy of living. She had been -gay, and full of laughter and humor. She had had a wonderful, vivid -mind, which found color and feeling and story in the commonest things. -She had been so clever and so witty, and such a bright and warm thing in -her house. When she had gone away from earth so suddenly, people had -said, with wonder, “But it seemed as if she _could_ not die!” But she -had died, and her child had died too, scarcely an hour after it was -born, and John Holt had been left stunned and aghast, and almost -stricken into gloomy madness. And in some way Meg was like her, with her -vivid little face and her black-lashed eyes, her City Beautiful and her -dreams and stories, which made the realities of her life. It was a -strange chance, a marvellously kind chance, which had thrown them -together; these two, who were of such different worlds, and yet, who -needed each other so much. - -During the afternoon, seeing that Meg looked a little tired, and also -realizing, in his practical fashion, that Ben’s mother would be more at -ease in the society she was used to, John Holt sent her to ramble about -with her boy, and Robin went with them; and Meg and John went to rest -with the thousands of roses among the bowers of the fairy island, and -there they said a good deal to each other. John Holt seemed to get a -kind of comfort in finding words for some of the thoughts he had been -silent about in the past. - -“It’s a queer thing,” he said, “but when I talk to you about her I feel -as if she were somewhere near.” - -“Perhaps she is,” said Meg, in her matter-of-fact little way. “We don’t -know what they are doing. But if you had gone into another world, and -she had stayed here, you know you would have come to take care of her.” - -“That’s true,” said John Holt. “I took care of her when she was here, -the Lord knows. There wasn’t anything on earth she liked that I wouldn’t -have broken my neck to get at. When I built that house for her—I built a -big house to take her to when we were married—she said I hadn’t left out -a thing she cared for. And she _knew_ what things ought to be. She -wasn’t like me, Meg. I’d spent my life trying to make a fortune. I began -when I was a boy, and I worked hard. She belonged to people with money, -and she’d read books and travelled and seen things. She knew it all. I -didn’t, when first I knew her, but I learned fast enough afterwards. I -couldn’t help it while I was with her. We planned the house together. It -was one of the best in the country—architecture, furniture, pictures, -and all the rest. The first evening we spent there——” He stopped and -cleared his throat, and was silent a few seconds. Then he added, in a -rather unsteady voice, “We were pretty happy people that evening.” - -Later he showed Meg her miniature. He carried it in an oval case in his -inside pocket. It was the picture of a young woman with a brilliant -face, lovely laughing eyes, and a bright, curving red mouth. - -“No,” he said, as he looked at it, “She _couldn’t_ go out. She’s -somewhere.” - -Then he told Meg about the rooms they had made ready for “John Holt, -Junior,” as they had called the little child who died so quickly. - -“It was her idea,” he said. “There was a nursery, with picture paper on -the walls. There was a bathroom, with tiles that told stories about -little mermen and mermaids, that she had made up herself. There was a -bedroom, with a swinging cot, frilled with lace and tied with ribbons. -And there were picture-books and toys. The doors never were opened. John -Holt, Junior, never slept in his cot. He slept with his mother.” - -There he broke off a moment again. - -“She used to be sorry he wouldn’t be old enough to appreciate all this,” -he said next. “She used to laugh about him, and say, he was going to be -cheated out of it. But she said he should come with us, so that he could -say he had been. She said he had to see it, if he only stared at it and -said ‘goo.’” - -“Perhaps he does see it,” said Meg. “I should think those who have got -away from here, and know more what being alive really means, would want -to see what earth people are _trying_ to do—though they know so little.” - -“That sounds pretty good,” said John Holt; “I like that.” - -They had been seated long enough to feel rested, and they rose and went -on their way, to begin their pilgrimage again. Just as they were -crossing the bridge they saw Robin coming tearing towards them. He -evidently had left Ben and his mother somewhere. He was alone. His hat -was on the back of his head, and he was hot with running. - -“Something has happened,” said Meg, “and I believe I know——” - -But Robin had reached them. - -“Meg,” he said, panting for breath, “Aunt Matilda’s here! She didn’t see -me, but I saw her. She’s in the Agricultural Building, standing before a -new steam plough, and she’s chewing a sample of wheat.” - - - - - XIX - - -The two children did not know exactly whether they were frightened or -not. If it had not seemed impossible that anything should go entirely -wrong while John Holt was near them, they would have felt rather queer. -But John Holt was evidently not the least alarmed. - -“Look here,” he said, “I’m glad of it. I want to see that woman.” - -“Do you?” exclaimed Robin and Meg together. - -“Yes, I do,” he said. “Come along, and let’s go and find her.” And he -strode out towards the Agricultural Building as if he were going towards -something interesting. - -It is true that the Agricultural Building had been too nearly connected -with Aunt Matilda’s world to hold the greatest attractions for the -little Pilgrims. It had, indeed, gone rather hard with them to find a -name for it with a beautiful sound. - -“But it _is_ something,” Meg had said, “and it’s a great, huge thing, -whether we care for it or not. That it isn’t the thing we care for -doesn’t make it any less. We should be fools if we thought that, of -course. And you know we’re not fools, Rob.” - -“No,” Rob had said, standing gazing at rakes and harrows with his brows -knit and his legs pretty wide apart. “And if there’s one thing that -shows human beings _can_ do what they set their minds to, it’s this -place. Why, they used to thresh wheat with flails—two pieces of wood -hooked together. They banged the wheat on the barn floor with things -like that! I’ll tell you what, as soon as a man gets any sense, he -begins to make machines. He bangs at things with his brain, instead of -with his arms and legs.” - -And in the end they had called it the Palace of the Genius of the Earth, -and the Seasons, and the Sun. They walked manfully by John Holt through -the place, Robin leading the way, until they came to the particular -exhibit where he had caught sight of Aunt Matilda. Being a business-like -and thorough person, she was still there, though she had left the steam -plough and directed her attention to a side-delivery hay rake, which she -seemed to find very well worth study. - -If the children and John Holt had not walked up and planted themselves -immediately in her path, she would not have seen them. It gave Meg a -little shudder to see how like her world she looked, with her hard, -strong-featured face, her straight skirt, and her square shoulders. They -waited until she moved, and then she looked up and saw them. She did not -start or look nervous in the least. She stared at them. - -“Well,” she said. “So this was the place you came to.” - -“Yes, Aunt Matilda,” said Robin. “We couldn’t let it go by us—and we -took our own money.” - -“And we knew you wouldn’t be anxious about us,” said Meg, looking up at -her with a shade of curiosity. - -Aunt Matilda gave a dry laugh. - -“No,” she said, “I’ve no time to be anxious about children. I took care -of myself when I was your age; and I had a sort of notion you’d come -here. Who are you with?” - -John Holt lifted his hat, but without too much ceremony. He knew Mrs. -Matilda Jennings’s principles were opposed to the ceremonious. - -“I’m a sort of neighbor of yours, Mrs. Jennings,” he explained. “I have -some land near your farm, though I don’t live on the place. My name is -John Holt.” - -Aunt Matilda glanced from him to Robin. - -She knew all about John Holt, and was quite sufficiently business-like -to realize that it would be considered good luck to have him for a -friend. - -“Well,” she said to them, “you’ve got into good hands.” - -John Holt laughed. - -“By this time we all three think we’ve got into good hands,” he said; -“and we’re going to see this thing through.” - -“They haven’t money enough to see much of it,” said Mrs. Jennings. - -“No,” said John Holt, “but I have, and it’s to be my treat.” - -“Well,” said Aunt Matilda, “I suppose you can afford it. I couldn’t. -I’ve come here on business.” - -“You’d better let us help you to combine a little pleasure with it,” -said John Holt. “This won’t happen twice in your life or mine.” - -“There’s been a lot of money wasted in decorations,” said Mrs. Jennings. -“I don’t believe it will pay them.” - -“Oh, yes; it will pay them,” said John Holt. “It would pay them if they -didn’t make a cent out of it. It would have paid _me_, if I’d done it, -and lost money.” - -“Now, see here,” said Mrs. Matilda Jennings, with a shrewd air, “the -people that built this didn’t do it for their health—they did it for -what they’d make out of it.” - -“Perhaps they did,” said John Holt, “and perhaps all of them didn’t. And -even those that did have made a bigger thing than they knew, by -Jupiter!” - -They were all sauntering along together, as they spoke. Meg and Robin -wondered what John Holt was going to do. It looked rather as if he -wanted to see more of Aunt Matilda. And it proved that he did. He had a -reason of his own, and, combined with this, a certain keen sense of -humor made her entertaining to him. He wanted to see how the place -affected her, as he had wanted to look on at its effect on Meg and -Robin. But he knew that Aunt Matilda had come to accumulate new ideas on -agriculture, and that she must be first allowed to satisfy herself on -that point; and he knew the children were not specially happy in the -society of ploughs and threshing-machines, and he did not think Aunt -Matilda’s presence would add to their pleasure in the Palace of the -Earth, the Seasons, and the Sun. Besides, he wanted to talk to Mrs. -Jennings a little alone. - -“You know where Ben and his mother are?” he said to Robin, after a few -minutes. - -“Yes,” Robin answered. - -“Then take Meg and go to them for a while. Mrs. Jennings wants to stay -here about an hour more, and I want to walk round with her. In an hour -come back to the entrance here and I will meet you.” - -Meg and Robin went away as he told them. It was in one sense rather a -relief. - -“I wonder what she’ll say to him,” said Meg. - -“There’s no knowing,” Robin answered. “But whatever it is, he will make -it all right. He’s one of those who have found out human beings can do -things if they try hard enough. He was as lonely and poor as we are when -he was twelve. He told me so.” - -What Aunt Matilda said was very matter-of-fact. - -“I must say,” she said, as the children walked off, “you seem to have -been pretty good to them.” - -“They’ve been pretty good to me,” said John Holt. “They’ve been pretty -good _for_ me, though they’re not old enough to know it.” - -“They’re older than their age,” said Aunt Matilda. “If they’d been like -other children the Lord knows what I should have done with them. They’ve -been no trouble in particular.” - -“I should imagine not,” said John Holt. - -“It was pretty business-like of them,” said Mrs. Jennings, with another -dry laugh, “to make up their minds without saying a word to any one, and -just hustle around and make their money to come here. They both worked -pretty steady, I can tell you, and it wasn’t easy work, either. Most -young ones would have given in. But they were bound to get here.” - -“They’ll be bound to get pretty much where they make up their minds to, -as life goes on,” remarked John Holt. “That’s their build.” - -“Thank goodness, they’re not like their father,” Mrs. Jennings -commented. “Robert hadn’t any particular fault, but he never made -anything.” - -“He and his wife seem to have made a home that was a pretty good start -for these children,” was what John Holt said. - -“Well,” said Mrs. Jennings, “they’ve got to do the rest themselves. He -left them nothing.” - -“No other relations but you?” John Holt asked. - -“Not a soul. I shall keep them and let them work on the farm, I -suppose.” - -“It would pay to educate them well and let them see the world,” said -John Holt. - -“I dare say it would pay _them_,” replied Aunt Matilda, “but I’ve got -all I can do, and my husband’s family have a sort of claim on me. Half -the farm belonged to him.” - -They spent their remaining hours in the Agricultural Building very -profitably. Mrs. Jennings found John Holt an excellent companion. He -knew things very thoroughly, and had far-seeing ideas of how far things -would work, and how much they would pay. He did not expect Mrs. Jennings -to tell him fairy stories, and he told her none, but before they left -the place they had talked a good deal. John Holt had found out all he -wanted to know about the two children, and he had made a proposition -which certainly gave Aunt Matilda something new to think of. - -She was giving some thought to it when they went out to meet the party -of four at the entrance. She looked as if she had been rather surprised -by some occurrence, but she did not look displeased, and the glances she -gave to Meg and Robin expressed a new sense of appreciation of their -practical value. - -“I’ve promised Mr. Holt that I’ll let him take me through the Midway -Plaisance,” she said. “I’ve seen the things I came to see, and I may as -well get my ticket’s worth.” - -Meg and Robin regarded her with interest. Aunt Matilda and the Midway -Plaisance, taken together, would be such a startling contrast that they -must be interesting. And as she looked at John Holt’s face, as they went -on their way, Meg knew he was thinking the same thing. And it was a -strange experience. Mrs. Jennings strode through the curious places -rather as if she were following a plough down a furrow. She looked at -Samoan beauties, Arab chiefs, and Persian Jersey Lilies with unmovedly -scrutinizing eyes. She did not waste time anywhere, but she took all in -as if it were a matter of business. Camel drivers and donkey boys seemed -to strike her merely as samples of slow travelling; she ascended, as it -were into mid-heaven, on the Ferris Wheel, with a grim air of -determination. Being so lifted from earth and poised above in the clear -air, Meg had thrilled with a strange, exultant feeling of being a bird, -and it had seemed to her that, with a moment’s flutter of wings, she -could soar higher and higher, and lose herself in the pure sea of blue -above. Aunt Matilda looked down with cool interest. - -“Pretty big power this,” she said to John Holt. “I guess it’s made one -man’s fortune.” - -John Holt was a generous host. He took her from place to place—to -Lapland villages, Cannibal huts, and Moorish palaces. She tramped about, -and inspected them all with a sharp, unenthusiastic eye. She looked at -the men and women, and their strange costumes, plainly thinking them -rather mad. - -“It’s a queer sight,” she said to John Holt; “but I don’t see what good -all this is going to do any one.” - -“It saves travelling expenses,” answered John Holt, laughing. His -shrewd, humorous face was very full of expression all the time they were -walking about together. She had only come for the day, and she was going -back by a night train. When she left them, she gave them both one of -those newly appreciative looks. - -“Well,” she said, “Mr. Holt’s going to look after you, he says. He’s got -something to tell you when I’m gone. We’ve talked it over, and it’s all -right. There’s one thing sure, you’re two of the luckiest young ones -_I_’ve heard of.” And she marched away briskly. - -Meg and Robin looked at each other and at John Holt. What was he going -to tell them? But he told them nothing until they had all dined, and Ben -and his mother had gone home, prepared to come again the next day. - -By that time the City Beautiful was wreathed with its enchanted jewels -of light again, and in the lagoon’s depths they trembled and blazed. -John Holt called a gondola with a brilliant gondolier, and they got into -it and shot out into the radiant night. - -The sight was so unearthly in its beauty that for a few moments they -were quite still. Meg sat in her Straw Parlor attitude, with her elbows -on her knees, and her chin on her hands. Her eyes looked very big, and -as lustrous as the jewels in the lagoon. - -“I’m going to ask you something,” said John Holt, in a quiet sort of -voice, at last. - -“Yes,” said Meg, dreamily. - -“Would you two like to belong to _me_?” - -Meg’s hands dropped, and she turned her shining eyes. - -“I’ve been talking to your Aunt Matilda about that big house of mine,” -he went on. “It’s empty. There’s too much room in it. I want to take you -two, and see if you can fill it up. Will you come?” - -[Illustration: “IT’S A QUEER SIGHT,” SHE SAID TO JOHN HOLT.] - -Meg and Robin turned their eyes upon each other in a dazed way. - -“Will we come?” they stammered. - -“Mrs. Jennings is willing,” said John Holt. “You two have things to do -in the world. I’ll help you to learn to do them. You,” with the short -laugh—“you shall tell me fairy stories.” - -Fairy stories! What was this? Their hearts beat in their breasts like -little hammers. The gondola moved smoothly over the scintillating water, -and the jewel-strung towers and domes rose white against the lovely -night. Meg looked around her, and uttered a little cry. - -“Oh, Rob!” she said. “Oh, dear John Holt. We have got _into_ the City -Beautiful, and you are going to let us live there always.” - -And John Holt knew that the big house would seem empty no more. - - - - - XX - - -It would have seemed that this was the climax of wonders and delights—to -know that they had escaped forever from Aunt Matilda’s world, that they -were not to be parted from John Holt, that they were to be like his -children, living with him, sharing his great house, and learning all -they could want to learn. All this, even when it was spoken of as -possible, seemed more than could be believed, but it seemed almost more -unbelievable day by day, as the truth began to realize itself in detail. -What a marvellous thing it was to find out that they were not lonely, -uncared-for creatures any more, but that they belonged to a man who -seemed to hold all power in his hands! When John Holt took them to the -big stores and bought them all they needed, new clothes and new trunks -and new comforts, and luxuries such as they had never thought of as -belonging to them, they felt almost aghast. He was so practical, and -seemed to know so well how to do everything, that each hour convinced -them more and more that everything was possible to him. And he seemed to -like so much to be with them. Day after day he took them to their City -Beautiful, and enjoyed with them every treasure in it. And they had so -much time before them, they could see it all at rapturous leisure and -ease. No more hungry hours, no more straining of tired bodies and -spurring of weary feet, because there was so much to see and so little -time to see it in, because there was so little money to be spent. There -was time to loiter through palaces and linger before pictures and -marvellous things. And John Holt could explain them all. No more limited -and vague imaginings. There was time to hear everything, and Meg could -tell fairy stories by the hour if she was in the mood. She told them in -tropical bowers; she told them as they floated on the lagoon; she read -them in strange, savage, or oriental faces. - -“I shall have enough to last all my life, John Holt,” she would say. “I -see a new one every half-hour. If you like, I will tell them all to you -and Robin when you have nothing else to do.” - -“It will be like the ‘Arabian Nights,’” said Robin. “Meg, do you -remember that old book we had where all the leaves we wanted most were -torn out, and we had to make the rest up ourselves?” - -There was one story Meg found John Holt liked better than all the rest. -It was the one about the City Beautiful, into which she used to follow -Christian in the days when she and Robin lay in the Straw Parlor. It had -grown so real to her that she made it very real and near in the telling. -John Holt liked the way she had of filling it with people and things she -knew quite well. Meg was very simple about it all, but she told that -story well and often, when they were resting in some beautiful place -alone. John Holt would lead her back to it, and sit beside her, -listening, with a singular expression in his eyes. Ah, those were -wonderful days! - -Ben and his mother shared them, though they were not always with John -Holt and Robin and Meg. John Holt made comfortable plans for them, and -let them wander about and look their fill. - -“It’s a great thing for _him_, Mr. Holt,” said the poor woman once, with -a side glance at Ben. “Seems like he’s been born over again. The way he -talks, when we go home at night, is as if he’d never be tired again as -long as he lives. And a month ago I used to think he’d wear himself out, -fretting. Seemed like I could see him getting thinner and peakeder every -day. My, it’s a wonderful thing!” - -And John Holt’s kindness did not end there, though it was some time -before Meg and Robin heard all he had done. One day, when they had left -the grounds earlier than usual, because they were tired, he spent the -evening in searching out Ben’s disreputable father, and giving him what -he called “a straight talk.” - -“Look here,” he said, “I’m going to keep my eye on that boy of yours and -your wife. I intend to make the house decent, and see that the boy has a -chance to learn something, and take care they’re not too hard run. But -I’m going to keep my eye on you too—at least, I shall see that some one -else does—and if you make things uncomfortable you’ll be made pretty -uncomfortable yourself, that’s all. I’d advise you to try the new -recreation of going to work. It’ll be good for your health. Sort of -athletics.” - -And he kept his word. - -It was a marvel of a holiday. It is not possible that among all the -holiday-makers there were two others who were nearer the rapture of -Paradise than these two little Pilgrims. - -When it was at an end they went home with John Holt. It was a wonderful -home-going. The house was a wonderful house. It was one of the -remarkable places that some self-made western men have built and -furnished, with the aid of unlimited fortunes and the unlimited shrewd -good sense which has taught most of those of them whose lives have been -spent in work and bold ventures that it is more practical to buy taste -and experience than to spend money without it. John Holt had also had -the aid and taste of a wonderful little woman, whose life had been -easier and whose world had been broader than his own. Together they had -built a beautiful and lovable home to live in. It contained things from -many countries, and its charm and luxury might well have been the result -of a far older civilization. - -“Don’t you think, Robin,” said Meg, in a low voice, the first evening, -as they sat in a deep-cushioned window-seat in the library together, -“don’t you think you know what She was like?” - -They had spoken together of her often, and somehow it was always in a -rather low voice, and they always called her “She.” - -Robin looked up from the book he held on his knee. It was a beautiful -volume She had been fond of. - -“I know why you say that,” he said. “You mean that somehow the house is -like her. Yes, I’m sure it is, just as Aunt Matilda’s house is like her. -People’s houses are always like them.” - -“This one is full of her,” said Meg. “I should think John Holt would -feel as if she must be in it, and she might speak to him any moment. I -feel as if she might speak to me. And it isn’t only the pictures of her -everywhere, with her eyes laughing at you from the wall and the tables -and the mantels. It’s _herself_. Perhaps it is because she helped John -Holt to choose things, and was so happy here.” - -“Perhaps it is,” said Robin; and he added, softly, “this was her book.” - -They went once more to Aunt Matilda’s world. They did it because John -Holt wanted to see the Straw Parlor, and they wanted to show it to him -and bid it good-by. - -Aunt Matilda treated them with curious consideration. It almost seemed -as if she had begun to regard them with respect. It seemed to her that -any business-like person would respect two penniless children who had -made themselves attractive to a man with the biggest farm in Illinois, -and other resources still larger. They went out to the barn in their old -way, when no one knew where they were going, and when no one was about -to see them place their ladder against the stack, and climb up to the -top. The roof seemed more like a dark tent than ever, and they saw the -old birds’ nests, which by this time were empty. - -“Meg,” said Robin, “do you remember the day we lay in the straw and told -each other we had got work? And do you remember the afternoon I climbed -up with the old coffee-pot, to boil the eggs in?” - -“And when we counted the Treasure?” said Meg. - -“And when we talked about miracles?” said Robin. - -“And when it made me think human beings could do anything if they tried -hard enough?” said Meg. - -“And when you read the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’?” said John Holt. - -“And the first afternoon when we listened to Jones and Jerry, and you -said there _was_ a City Beautiful?” said Meg. - -“And there _was_,” said Robin, “and we’ve been there.” - -“It was just this time in the afternoon,” said Meg, looking about her; -“the red light was dying away, for I could not see to read any more.” - -And for a little while they sat in the Straw Parlor, while the red light -waned; and afterwards, when they spoke of it, they found they were all -thinking of the same thing, and it was of the last day they had spent at -the Enchanted City, when they had gone about together in a strange, -tender, half-sad mood, loitering through the white palaces, lingering -about the clear pools of green sea water, where strange creatures swam -lazily or darted to and fro, looking their last at pictures and stories -in marble, and listening to the tinkle of water plashing under great -tropical leaves and over strange mosses, strolling through temples and -past savage huts, and gazing in final questioning at mysterious, -barbarous faces; and at last passing through the stately archway and -being borne away on the waters of the great lake. - -As they had been carried away farther and farther, and the white wonder -had begun to lose itself and fade into a white spirit of a strange and -lovely thing, Meg had felt the familiar throb at her heart and the -familiar lump in her throat. And she had broken into a piteous little -cry. - -“Oh, John Holt,” she said, “it is going, it is going, and we shall never -see it again! For it will vanish away, it will vanish away!” And the -tears rushed down her cheeks, and she hid her face on his arm. - -But though he had laughed his short laugh, John Holt had made her lift -up her head. - -“No,” he said, “it won’t vanish away. It’s not one of the things that -vanish. Things don’t vanish away that a million or so of people have -seen as they’ve seen this. They stay where they’re not forgotten, and -time doesn’t change them. They’re put where they can be passed on, and -passed on again. And thoughts that grow out of them bring other ones. -And what things may grow out of it that never would have been, and where -the end is, the Lord only knows, for no human being can tell. It won’t -vanish away.” - -Dear little children and big ones, this is a Fairy Story. And why not? -There are not many people who believe it, but fairy stories are -happening every day. There are beautiful things in the world; there are -many people with kind and generous hearts; there are those who do their -work well, giving what is theirs to give, and being glad in the giving; -there are birds in the skies, and flowers and leaves in the woods—and -Spring comes every year. These make the fairy stories. Every fairy story -has a moral, and this one has two. They are these: - -The human creature is a strong thing—when it is a brave one. - -Nature never made a human hand without putting into it _something_ to -give. - - - - - _BOOKS ILLUSTRATED IN COLORS_ - - - Kidnapped: - Being the Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour - By Robert Louis Stevenson - With 15 full-page illustrations and full-color cover. Lining paper and - title-page by N. C. 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