Cheerily, with their umbrellas under their arms, the three threaded the crowded streets, where hucksters were calling their wares, where donkeys, drawing funny little carts, disputed the way with immense dray horses, and sprightly-looking hansoms dashed by the huge busses, top-heavy with their loads of passengers. The pavements were gay with gentlemen in wide-bottomed, full-skirted coats of brilliant blues, greens and snuff browns, with curly-brimmed high hats atop of whiskered faces, and striped, tight-fitting trousers on their legs, as well as with ladies in hoop-skirts and shawls and bonnets, demure as pansies when they were young and slight, but resembling overblown peonies or immense inverted cabbages of the purple variety when they were elderly and fat.
Everybody seemed to know every one, and there was much nodding and greeting to and fro. Several nodded kindly to the Little Nell, having seen her pass the same way often before. One or two stopped to speak a word, and complimented her on her rosy cheeks and bright eyes.
“You look blooming as a wild rose, child,” said one. “And your friends too. It does an old woman good to see such happy faces.”
“She often speaks to me,” said Nell, “but I know not who she is, except that she hath, so she has told me, a daughter Barbara. She is a kind soul.”
And now they reached the door of the queer old shop where Nell and her grandfather lived. There he stood, peering out under his hand, waiting. When he saw the three girls coming toward him, he smiled gently.
“We’ve had such a good time,” said Rose, when Nell had introduced her and Ruth. “We’ve been playing together all the afternoon. And see, we’ve brought a little basketful of good things for you, too.”
So they went in and unpacked the goodies. Then the old man took them all over his shop, showing them numerous things, some queer, some beautiful, all old. Then it was time to say good-bye, for it was growing dark. The two sisters shook hands with Nell’s grandfather, and then turned to Nell herself, clasping her warmly in their arms.
“You are a dear little thing, and as pretty as a picture,” Ruth told her. “We have loved being with you.”
Rose kissed her, saying that she would never forget their jolly afternoon, and Little Nell, serious once more, embraced them tenderly, murmuring that no one had a right to be sad in a world that held such persons as Rose and Ruth, not to speak of Dick.
With which the two sisters found themselves once more safe and sound at home—after the properest good-bye they’d ever taken, as Ruth remarked.