June decided to go with Sally, to help her bear the burden. This she managed to do by sitting upon it, using the wonderful wand, and wishing the bundle should seem only a tenth part of its real weight. So it was made to be; but Sally, who had not been encouraged to observe things, or to estimate differences, did not become aware of its lightness. In any case, the burden, even when reduced by June, was full heavy enough for a child of her strength and years. But many another like Sally was bearing a similar burden.
Down the stairs and out of Paradise Court went the girl and the fairy; along a dreary, slippery pavement, passing a thousand people, self-interested, self-centred and hurrying, who might laugh, talk, bustle and frown in their individual ways, but who still to June, as to Oberon and all else of the better land, were poor, pitiful shadows, journeying, worrying, moiling for a few thousand days until the extinguisher was put over them.
Yellow and blue tramcars went jangling by. June, seeing people get into and out of them, was minded to make one of them stop, so that Sally could ride; but it was better this first time for Sally to go her own gait as usual. Anyhow, June was alert to be helpful, and handled her wand as the infant spendthrift fingers his penny, determined to use it as speedily and extravagantly as possible.
Sally toiled along slowly. She kept to the chief road, never daring to relax her hold of the bundle, because of the difficulty of recovering it.
She came to a wide crossing--a tramway and omnibus terminus--and passed through a maze of carts and people. June began to feel frightened because of the clamour and crowding, but soon lost her unworthy fears by remembering that these creatures and things--in comparison with herself--were only shadows, permitted to dwell for a little while in the beautiful world which belongs to the fairies, and others of spirit-land. She had more power in her wand and will than they in any or all of their Brobdingnagian faculties.
June was profoundly impressed by the wonderful powers of the police. The way the helmeted man of authority stood in the midst of the press and ruled it, appealed to her as nothing had done since she had witnessed Oberon in his majesty commanding the shapes and princes in the Violet Valley. As Sally went slowly by the policemen, June gave each a fairy's blessing. They became thereafter, and are to this day, more than usually polite and attentive to the timid.
Sally plodded along steadily. She passed a pump dripping with water. June saw several fat sparrows before it, squabbling over the corn which had fallen from a horse's nosebag. She went to chide them, as fairies do to birds in the country when their manners would bear mending; but these town sparrows, in their Cockney ignorance, never having seen a fairy, or dreamed there was anything in existence more important than themselves and perhaps some thin stray cat, pecked at her disrespectfully. As she paid no attention to their surliness, they took sudden panic and fled in a fright, chattering at one another in fine unanimous complaint.
June resumed her perch, but now on Sally's hat. She throned herself on its broken brim, and viewed London with exalted detachment.
The squalor was left behind, but to fairy eyes the City was particularly dreary. The buildings withal so heavy, high and ambitious, wore looks of decay, and were stained with grime. The coarseness of the atmosphere, too, was oppressive. What a life! What a place! June could not resist wistfully thinking of that happier world where the flowers are free and soft winds kiss them. She deeply pitied the folk, who, voluntarily or not, were foolishly imprisoned in the stuffy stone-land.
Sally turned down a court and threaded a series of alleys, bewildering to a stranger, till she came to an ill-painted door and rang a bell.