CHAPTER VIII.
"INNOCENTS ABROAD."
Hannah had asked for "a morning out;" a request which greatly amazed her temporary mistress, Mrs. Rush, inasmuch as the old woman had no friends or acquaintances in the city, and was possessed of a wholesome dread of the snares and pitfalls with which she believed it abounded, and even when out with her charge would never go without an escort beyond the park on which Colonel Rush's house fronted and whence she could keep it in view.
But permission, of course, was granted, and Hannah, after ascertaining that a banker's office was the proper place to exchange her precious gold, sallied forth with it, having finally resolved to sacrifice it for Percy's relief without further delay, as Easter was drawing near and the time of reprieve was coming to a close.
It would take too long to tell of the trials and tribulations she encountered on her way to her destination. She consulted every single policeman she met, and then had so little confidence in their directions and advice that she still felt herself hopelessly bewildered and at sea in the business streets of the great city; while whenever she was obliged to cross among the trucks, express-wagons and other vehicles, she felt as if there would be an immediate necessity for the epitaph. As may be supposed, she afforded no little sport to the guardians of the peace, but they were, on the whole, kind and considerate to her and often passed her on from one to another.
But at length, unshielded for the time by any such friendly protection, she stood at the corner of the greatest and most thronged thoroughfare and one almost equally crowded which intersected it, and vainly strove to cross. The policeman on duty there was for the moment engaged with a lost child and had no eyes for her.
She made several frantic dives forward; but the confusion of wheels, horses' heads and shouting drivers speedily drove her back to the sidewalk after each fresh essay; and she was beginning to be in despair when she felt herself spasmodically seized by the arm, and a terrified voice said in her ear—no, not in her ear, for Hannah's ear was far above the diminutive person who had clutched her, and whom she turned to face,—
"Don't! don't! You'll be run over—yes, over—over indeed! Wait for the policeman—yes, policeman—'liceman, indeed!"
Hannah's eyes fell upon a very small old lady, attired in a quaint, old-fashioned costume, with little corkscrew curls surrounding her face, and carrying a good-sized leather satchel, while her every movement and word betrayed a timid, nervous, excitable temperament.
"Don't, don't!" she reiterated, "you'll be crushed—yes, crushed, indeed, crushed; that horse's head touched you, head—indeed—yes, head. What a place this city is—city, indeed, yes, city. Why did I come back to it, back, yes, back?"