“I don't care, it looks different! I believe it's grown. And that block of brick houses—did I ever see that before?”
“You took music lessons in it every week for two years, my dear,” remarked Aunt Em, gently prosaic.
“Oh, I suppose so, in another age! I've never seen it in this one. This is the Golden Age!”
Passing the hospital they saw Sal. She was sunning herself with other convalescents before the door. Her childlike face expressed only calm. She gazed at them, unsmiling.
“Oh, yes, she is about well,” an attendant volunteered, “but we can't bear to send her home. She's having such a good time in her way. No, she will never be any different. It was hoped she might be.”
“Sal!” Gloria called gently, “I'm going to No. 80 Pleasant Street. Do you want to send a message?”
“Number Eighty?” Sal repeated slowly.
“Yes, where mother is, Sal. Shall I take a message to your mother for you?”
“Tell her I ain't been beat once—not nary.”
Pleasant Street was still “Treeless Street,” to Gloria's regret. And they passed the same dreary succession of tenements. The same old little children played in the street. But at Dinney's House Gloria's eyes shone.