"Time goes very slowly," he said. "How I wish I had more money, and that when I had it I didn't spend it so fast. Well, perhaps Jo has managed about the tambourine after all. If there is a good manager, Jo is one. Oh, here we are at last!"
The children and Waters had turned into a shabby-looking street, and were now standing before a block of buildings which looked new and tolerably clean. Unlike any ordinary house Maggie had ever seen, this one appeared to possess no hall door, but was entered at once by a flight of stone stairs. The children and the servant began to ascend the stairs, and Maggie wondered how many they would have to go up before they reached the rooms where the little girl in the spotless pinafore with the white hands and the smoothly vaselined hair resided. Maggie was rather puzzled and disconcerted by the bare look of the stone stairs, and also by the somewhat anxious and grave expression on Ralph's face. She was unacquainted with that kind of look, and it puzzled her, and she began dimly to wonder if Miss Grey was right, and her picture of Jo was untrue.
At last they stopped at a door, which was shut, and which contained some writing in large black letters on its yellow paint. Maggie could not read, but Ralph pointed to the letters, and said joyfully:
"Here we are at last!"
The words on the door where these: "Mrs. Aylmer, Laundress and Charwoman," but Maggie, of course, was not enlightened by what she could not understand.
Waters knocked at the door; a quick, eager little voice said, "Come in." There was the pattering of some small feet, the door was flung wide open, and Maggie, Ralph, and Waters found themselves inside Jo's room.
That was the first impression the room gave; it seemed to belong to Jo; Jo's spirit seemed to pervade it all over. Mrs. Aylmer, laundress and charwoman, might own the room and pay the rent for it, but that made no difference—it was Jo's.
Who was Jo? Maggie asked herself this question; then she turned red; then she felt her lips trembling; then she became silent, absorbed, fascinated. The picture she had conjured up faded never to return, and the real Jo took its place.
Jo was the most beautiful little girl Maggie had ever seen—she had fluffy, shining, tangled hair; her pale face was not thin, but round and smooth; each little feature was delicate and chiseled; the lips were little rosebuds; the eyes had that serene light which you never see except in the faces of those children who have been taught patience through suffering. Jo was a sadly crippled little girl lying on a low bed. Maggie, of course, had seen poor children in the village at home; but those children had not been ill; they were rosy and hearty and strong. This child looked fragile, and yet there was nothing absolutely weak about her. At the moment when Ralph and Maggie entered Jo was keeping school; two twin boys were standing by her bedside, and listening eagerly to her instructions.
"No, no, Bob," she was saying, "you mustn't do it that way; you must do it more carefully, Bob, and slower. Now, shall we begin again?"