"Because it does you good," said the lady of the caravan, "when you're tired, to sleep as long as ever you can; and that's another blessing of your time of life—you can sleep so very sound; I can't, I'm sorry to say."
Shortly afterwards the child sat down with her grandfather and Mrs. Jarley to breakfast. The meal finished, Nell helped to wash the cups and saucers, and put them in their proper places; and these duties done, Mrs. Jarley dressed herself in a very bright shawl for the purpose of passing through the streets of the town.
"The van will come on to bring the boxes," said Mrs. Jarley, "and you had better come in it, child. I must walk, very much against my will; but the people expect it of me. How do I look, child?"
Nell at once said that she looked very nice, and Mrs. Jarley went forth with her head in the air.
The caravan followed at no great distance. As it went jolting through the streets, Nell peeped through the window to see in what kind of place they were. It was a pretty large town with an open square, in the middle of which was the town hall, with a clock-tower and a weather-cock.
The streets were very clean, very sunny, very empty, and very dull. Nothing seemed to be going on but the clocks, and they had such drowsy faces, such heavy, lazy hands, that they surely must have been too slow. The very dogs were all asleep; and the flies, drunk with the moist sugar in the grocer's shop, forgot their wings, and baked to death in dusty corners of the window.
Rumbling along with a great noise, the caravan stopped at last at the place of exhibition. Nell got down amidst a group of children, who clearly thought that her grandfather was one of the wax figures. The chests were quickly taken out and unlocked by Mrs. Jarley, who, with George and another man, was waiting to decorate the room with the hangings from them.
When the festoons were all put up as tastily as might be, the wax-work figures were uncovered and set out on a platform running round the room some two feet from the floor. There they stood more or less unsteadily upon their legs, with their eyes and nostrils very wide open, and their faces bearing a look of great surprise.
When Nell had looked at them all with great delight, Mrs. Jarley ordered the room to be cleared of all but herself and the child. Then sitting herself down in an armchair in the centre, she handed Nell a willow wand, long used by herself for pointing out the characters, and was at great pains to teach her what to do and say.
"That," said Mrs. Jarley in her grandest tone, as Nell touched a figure at the beginning of the platform, "is a maid-of-honour in the time of Queen Elizabeth, who died from pricking her finger while sewing upon a Sunday. See how the blood is trickling from her finger; also the gold-eyed needle of the time with which she is at work."