Now 'Lisbeth had never given up counting the miles to London. She had
counted them up by tens many a time; she had counted them up by
twenties; she had counted them up every way there was to count them, but
they continued to be a great many miles. When she learned that she was
going to grow in a new place, she believed that nothing would ever
trouble her any more; that the world would be made over new.
'Lisbeth could not help in getting ready; if she had done less in
getting ready she might have helped her mother more. But mother helped
herself. She sold a great many things, and she left a great many things
to be sent after her, and she carried a great many things with her.
Mother cried when she left the old house, but 'Lisbeth did not cry, she
danced about on the points of her toes, till she laughed herself quite
red in the face. 'Lisbeth had always been a little foolish about
London.
'Lisbeth had wished a great while to go to London. She might have been a
great deal happier in the beautiful place where she grew if she had not
wished so hard; she had wished very hard and she got there. She had
always believed that London was delightful; now she knew it was. She had
lived in a dear little mite of a house, now she would live in a tall
one. She had lived next and near to a great many people, now she would
live under the roof with a great many people. She had lived on a lane,
now she would live on a--well, a street which was too little and short
and narrow to be called a street.
'Lisbeth knew she had come to London because she was poorer, instead of
because she was richer, but that did not make any difference. At the end
of the street too little to be called a street, was a real, true, broad
street, with fine houses packed together from one end to the other end
of it.
'Lisbeth slipped down the stairs, and along the little street to the
corner. She threw up her hands in admiration. She looked up and down in
delight. It was a fine thing to live in London, a very great and fine
thing indeed. She ran quite out of the little street to look up and
down the greater one.
She saw the windows in rows, blazing with lights. She clapped her hands;
she was delighted. She heard children's voices from an open window. She
climbed stealthily up to the window and looked in. Six children appeared
before her, with very sweet faces, and pretty clothes, and the lights
flashed down upon them from overhead.
They were playing with dolls. They were playing so hard that they did
not see 'Lisbeth clinging to the sill. They were pretending that the
dolls were talking to each other, that the one was the man and the other
the mistress. The mistress was telling the man to take off his hat; but
he was a stubborn man, he would not take off his hat. Then the children
all laughed, and 'Lisbeth laughed so much harder than anybody else, that
they all looked up and saw her hanging to the sill; then she dropped
suddenly, and forgot that she had to drop so far, and had she not caught
by her skirt and hung to the iron railing of the area, nobody knows how
she might have been broken and battered and bruised by falling down the
area before she had been in London over night.
But she caught to the spikes and her dress was strong; and the children
all ran and saw her hanging to the spikes, and somebody lifted her over
and stood her on her feet and turned her around to see what she looked
like, and then she ran home as soon as she could find out which way to
run.
She found out that the big street was nicer than the little one; that
the people on the big street were different from the people on the
little one. She found out that all the houses and streets in London were
not just alike, and she found this out before she had gone to sleep the
first night, in the little black room, in the big dirty house, in the
little black street. But she was not sorry she had come to London.
She wondered if everybody who lived in London had such lovely dolls as
the mistress, such wonderful dolls as the man she had seen. She wondered
if there were many children in London who wore such pretty clothes, and
who played under such flashing lights, and who had such shining
glasses, and tables, and chairs, and wonderful furniture of all kinds in
the rooms where they played, and she concluded there must be; this time
she did not make a mistake, for there were.
[Illustration]
'Lisbeth noticed that her mother, and Gorham, and Dickon, and Trotty did
not go in any rooms of the tall house but two; she found that these two
were at the top of the house, and that they had nothing to do with those
underneath; she found out that there was a great clatter in the house,
and in the next houses, as though the whole town were talking; she
wondered how she liked it; but she concluded that she liked it very
much; she was living in London, how could she help liking it?
Mother looked solemn, and the rooms looked black, and the things were
tumbled upside down, and the air was hot, and the noise kept everybody
awake, and everybody was half tired to death, and nothing was as bright
as it might have been--not even the tallow candle--but they were in
London, a hundred miles from the mile-stone; a hundred miles from the
church steeple, and the mill, and the dear bit of a house where they had
all grown, and rolled, and tumbled; and from the meadows with the
flowers sleeping side by side; but they were in London, what did it
matter?
Yet if they really were in London, while they slept they dreamed they
were playing, and walking and talking under the shadow of the church
steeple, and by the mill, and chasing butterflies over the meadows where
the flowers were fast asleep, and forgot that the rooms were black, and
the air hot, and that things were not as they had been.