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

by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Oh, what a day it was! What wonders they saw and hung over, and dwelt on with passions of young delight! The great sea gave up its deep to them; great forests and trackless jungles their wonderful growths; kings’ palaces and queens’ coffers their rarest treasures; the ages of long ago their relics and strange legends, in stone and wood and brass and gold.

They did not know how often people turned and stopped to look at their two little, close-leaning figures and vivid, dark, ecstatic-eyed faces. They certainly never chanced to see that one figure was often behind them at a safe distance, and seemed rather to have fallen into the habit of going where they went and listening to what they said. It was their man, curiously enough, and it was true that he was rather a gloomy-looking man, when one observed him well. His keen, business-like, well-cut face had a cloud resting upon it; he looked listless and unsmiling, even in the palaces that most stirred the children’s souls; and, in fact, it seemed to be their odd enthusiasm which had attracted him a little, because he was in the mood to feel none himself. He had been within hearing distance when Meg had been telling her stories of the Genius of the Palace of the Sea, and a faint smile had played about his mouth for a moment. Then he had drawn a trifle nearer, still keeping out of sight, and when they had moved he had followed them. He had been a hard, ambitious, wealth-gaining man all his life. A few years before he had found a new happiness, which softened him for a while, and made his world seem a brighter thing. Then a black sorrow had come upon him, and everything had changed. He had come to the Enchanted City, not as the children had come, because it shone before them, a radiant joy, but because he wondered if it would distract him at all. All other things had failed; his old habits of work and scheme, his successes, his ever-growing fortune, they were all as nothing. The world was empty to him, and he walked about it feeling like a ghost. The little dark, vivid faces had attracted him, he did not know why, and when he heard the story of the Palace of the Sea, he was led on by a vague interest.

He was near them often during the day, but it was not until late in the afternoon that they saw him themselves, when he did not see them. They came upon him in a quiet spot where he was sitting alone. On a seat near him sat a young woman, resting, with a baby asleep in her arms. The young woman was absorbed in her child, and was apparently unconscious of him. His arms were folded and his head bent, but he was looking at her in an absent, miserable way. It was as if she made him think of something bitter and sad.

Meg and Robin passed him quietly.

HE WAS LOOKING AT HER IN AN ABSENT, MISERABLE WAY.

“I see what you meant, Meg,” Robin said. “He does look as if something was the matter with him. I wonder what it is?”

When they passed out of the gates at dusk, it was with worn-out bodies, but enraptured souls. In the street-car, which they indulged in the extravagance of taking, the tired people, sitting exhaustedly in the seats and hanging on to straps, looked with a sort of wonder at them, their faces shone so like stars. They did not know where they were going to sleep, and they were more than ready for lying down, but they were happy beyond words.

They went with the car until it reached the city’s heart, and then they got out and walked. The streets were lighted, and the thoroughfares were a riot of life and sound. People were going to theatres, restaurants, and hotels, which were a blaze of electric radiance. They found themselves limping a little, but they kept stoutly on, holding firmly to the satchel.

“We needn’t be afraid of going anywhere, however poor it looks,” Robin said, with a grave little elderly air. He was curiously grave for his years, sometimes. “Anybody can see we have nothing to steal. I think any one would know that we only want to go to bed.”