Meg promised to do so if Jem were agreeable, and hastened away to take off what little fire she had, and to lay it again to be ready whenever it might be needed. And then she stood looking out of the window watching for Jem.
The look-out was not as cheering as the look-in. Tall sombre houses across the narrow street, with dirty tattered blinds, bedsteads half across windows, dirty children leaning out and risking their necks, here and there a few sickly plants. Such was her outlook in front. Behind it was still worse. A double row of forlorn little courts, where stunted fowls were kept, where badly-washed clothes were hung from Saturday to Saturday all the week round, where rubbish was thrown, where children made mud-pies, where old boxes and firewood were heaped, and every imaginable untidiness congregated to depress the spirits and health of the crowded houses abutting on it.
Meg never looked out if she could help it. People must live in London, she supposed, and Jem had asked her to come and make London bright for him, and she meant to do it if she could. And then her eyes went up above the narrow street, and looked into the clear June sky, and she whispered: "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength: they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint."
CHAPTER VIII.
GONE.
