"London isn't a very nice place, is it?"
"Audrey," he went on again in a minute, still staring out of the window, in the same dull way, "Audrey, how many days will it be till they come back again?"
"I don't know," I replied.
"If we could find out exactly," he said, "I was thinking we might make a paper—a great big paper, with marks for every day, and then every night we might scratch one out. Papa told me he did that when he was a little boy at school, to watch for the holidays coming, and I'm sure we want them to come back more than any holidays."
"It might be a good plan," I said, for I didn't like to discourage Tom in anything he took a fancy to just now. But a sick, miserable feeling came over me when I thought that we were actually speaking of counting the days to their return, when they had not yet gone. Only this afternoon would they reach Southampton, the first stage on the terrible long journey.
Tom still sat swinging his legs.
"Audrey," he said, "London isn't a very nice place, is it?"
Certainly the look-out to-day was not tempting. Rain, rain—wet and sloppy under foot, gray and gloomy over head. I pressed my cheek against Tom's round, rosy face, and we stared out together.
"There must be some happy children in London, I suppose," I said, "children whose fathers and mothers are at home with them to make them happy," and as I said the words, suddenly on the other side of the street, a few doors down, my glance fell on the little conservatory which had caught Racey's eyes—his "air garden." I pointed it out to Tom, who listened with interest to Racey's funny name for it.
"I wonder," I said, "if there are happy children in that house?"