Two Little Pilgrims' Progress: A Story of the City Beautiful

by Frances Hodgson Burnett

“Oh, Rob!” she said. “Oh, dear John Holt. We have got into the City Beautiful, and you are going to let us live there always.”

And John Holt knew that the big house would seem empty no more.

XX

It would have seemed that this was the climax of wonders and delights—to know that they had escaped forever from Aunt Matilda’s world, that they were not to be parted from John Holt, that they were to be like his children, living with him, sharing his great house, and learning all they could want to learn. All this, even when it was spoken of as possible, seemed more than could be believed, but it seemed almost more unbelievable day by day, as the truth began to realize itself in detail. What a marvellous thing it was to find out that they were not lonely, uncared-for creatures any more, but that they belonged to a man who seemed to hold all power in his hands! When John Holt took them to the big stores and bought them all they needed, new clothes and new trunks and new comforts, and luxuries such as they had never thought of as belonging to them, they felt almost aghast. He was so practical, and seemed to know so well how to do everything, that each hour convinced them more and more that everything was possible to him. And he seemed to like so much to be with them. Day after day he took them to their City Beautiful, and enjoyed with them every treasure in it. And they had so much time before them, they could see it all at rapturous leisure and ease. No more hungry hours, no more straining of tired bodies and spurring of weary feet, because there was so much to see and so little time to see it in, because there was so little money to be spent. There was time to loiter through palaces and linger before pictures and marvellous things. And John Holt could explain them all. No more limited and vague imaginings. There was time to hear everything, and Meg could tell fairy stories by the hour if she was in the mood. She told them in tropical bowers; she told them as they floated on the lagoon; she read them in strange, savage, or oriental faces.

“I shall have enough to last all my life, John Holt,” she would say. “I see a new one every half-hour. If you like, I will tell them all to you and Robin when you have nothing else to do.”

“It will be like the ‘Arabian Nights,’” said Robin. “Meg, do you remember that old book we had where all the leaves we wanted most were torn out, and we had to make the rest up ourselves?”

There was one story Meg found John Holt liked better than all the rest. It was the one about the City Beautiful, into which she used to follow Christian in the days when she and Robin lay in the Straw Parlor. It had grown so real to her that she made it very real and near in the telling. John Holt liked the way she had of filling it with people and things she knew quite well. Meg was very simple about it all, but she told that story well and often, when they were resting in some beautiful place alone. John Holt would lead her back to it, and sit beside her, listening, with a singular expression in his eyes. Ah, those were wonderful days!

Ben and his mother shared them, though they were not always with John Holt and Robin and Meg. John Holt made comfortable plans for them, and let them wander about and look their fill.

“It’s a great thing for him, Mr. Holt,” said the poor woman once, with a side glance at Ben. “Seems like he’s been born over again. The way he talks, when we go home at night, is as if he’d never be tired again as long as he lives. And a month ago I used to think he’d wear himself out, fretting. Seemed like I could see him getting thinner and peakeder every day. My, it’s a wonderful thing!”

And John Holt’s kindness did not end there, though it was some time before Meg and Robin heard all he had done. One day, when they had left the grounds earlier than usual, because they were tired, he spent the evening in searching out Ben’s disreputable father, and giving him what he called “a straight talk.”