“And who is Rosy?” Gloria asked.
“Sure—de girl wot lives 'cross de hall. She's got eyes like your eyes, she has.”
Across the hall on Treeless Street. A girl with eyes like hers! It was like finding herself there. Gloria shivered. She had a sudden inward vision of herself living in Treeless Street.
A little crowd of interested children had gathered. One, bolder than the rest, had drawn unpleasantly close, and was smoothing Gloria's soft white dress with timid little fingers. Gloria wondered why she did not draw away, but stood still instead.
“Are youse a doctor-woman? W'ere's yer bag? Yer ain't t'rew yer bag away?”
“Huh! She ain't no doctor-woman.” This from Dinney, who had the advantage of early acquaintance. “She's on'y a cuttin' roun' de street. Youse better not be smudgin' up her dress, Carrots—gwan off, now! All o' youse gwan an' let de lady 'lone. Me 'n' Hunkie's de on'y ones as she wants roun'.”
Dinney and Hunkie escorted Gloria to the end of the street and back. Gloria returned on the opposite side with the idea of more thoroughly exploring. But she might as well have kept to the one side; both sides were alike in tenements and children—dreariness and poverty. There was no choice. It was with a long breath of relief that Gloria emerged again upon the main street. She filled her lungs with the cleaner air, and gazed with a new admiration at the well-to-do buildings.
The grotesque little figure of Dinney tramping back into Treeless Street with his rattling cart lurching behind him, was all that remained of what seemed to Gloria now must have been a dream. She glanced up at the street's name, at its juncture with the main street, and started suddenly, in very astonishment. The name she read pointed playful, jeering letters at her. She had always known there was a street in Tilford by that name—but not this, this street! Pleasant Street! Gloria walked the rest of the way as in a dream.