other, which looked much gayer, and many more people walked in it; but the Dove looked anxiously towards the narrow one, which grieved Maggie, and made her cry out, "O, Dovey, Dovey! how can you love the cold so well, or ask me to go where it is? Let us rather walk this way a little, and do you not see there are plenty of cross-roads?—so, if we wish, we can go on to that narrow road at any time."
So, notwithstanding the Dove's remonstrances, Maggie entered this road, and found the air so pleasant and warm, that she liked nothing better than to walk in it.
She saw a great many people here; but they took no notice of the little girl, who walked along so quietly, with her Dove in her bosom, and the bits of china in her pocket. But, if they did not notice her, she noticed them well, and thought them strange enough.
To her surprise she found the air, which had at first seemed so warm, began to grow cold, and more like the air about the old house; and, shivering with cold, and seeing the people about her wearing large cloaks, it was quite natural she
should ask them to let her in beneath the warm folds of them. To her civil request some of them paid no attention; others looked at her in wonder, and some were so rude as to speak cruel words to her, and bid her not dare speak to them again.
So Maggie saw them walk on, wrapped in their warm cloaks, and complained not. Indeed, she had lived too long in the little house without a door, not to be able to bear the cold bravely—only she could not help wishing sometimes that she had the bed with her, that she might jump in between its clothes and warm herself a while; but she was patient, remembering that she was journeying towards the Great King's palace, where her mother lived. Suddenly it occurred to her that the road to the Great King's palace lay through a remarkably cold country, and that the people who were travelling thither seemed in no haste, for they often sat down by the road-side and played; and some even went back, instead of forward, while all those little side-roads, which she thought she had seen before, had vanished. So, one day, she said to one of the people who sat down:
"Why do you not hasten that you may see the Great King?"
"The Great King, indeed!" he said whom she had addressed. "I am in no hurry to see him."
And others intimated as much as the lady long ago had said, that they themselves doubted very much if there were any Great King at all.