The gas had just been lighted on the streets, and the scene was very brilliant. The shops were fairy palaces. But Owlet did not stop to look at any of them, she was much too eager to hurry to “Lady.”
She had no idea of the distance that separated her from her beloved. Goblin Hall was out of the city among the trees somewhere. And people must know where it was, and she would inquire for it, as soon as she should see some one who was not in such an awful hurry as all the folks seemed to be on this street.
The Owlet of a month before would not have hesitated to stop the busiest man on the sidewalk and ask to be directed, but the Owlet of to-day was sad, subdued and timid, and so she walked a long distance down Broadway, until she came in sight of the trees in City Hall Park, and was ready to drop with fatigue, for she was still very weak. She had not found courage to speak to any of the crowd, until, at length, she saw an old woman, very old, very dirty, and very ragged, sitting on a cellar door, against the wall of a house, and with a huge bundle of foul smelling rags on her lap.
Owlet only perceived the poverty, and not the wickedness of the personality before her. She said to herself:
“This old woman is not proud, nor busy, nor in a hurry. I will ask her, and I reckon she will know; and when I get to Goblin Hall I will have Lady give her some new clothes, and some——”
Then she stopped before the wretch, and said:
“Please, ma’am, will you show me the way to Goblin Hall?”
“Goblet which?” demanded the crone, who seemed to be rather deaf.
“Goblin Hall.”
“Oh! Goblet Hall! I dunno sich a place. Is it a s’loon or mus’um?”