At last I found myself in a much darker street than the others. For there were few shops in it, and most of the houses were offices of some kind. It was a wide street and rather hilly. As I stood at the top I saw it sloping down before me; the light of the tall lamps glimmered brokenly in the puddles, for it was raining again more heavily now. Suddenly, as if in a dream, some words came back to me, so clearly that I could almost have believed some one was speaking. It was mamma's voice.
"You had better put on your mackintosh, Haddie," I seemed to hear her say, and then I remembered it all—it came before me like a picture—that rainy evening not many months ago when mamma and Haddie and I had walked home so happily, we two tugging at her arms, one on each side, heedless of the rain or the darkness, or anything except that we were all together.
I stood still. Never, I think, was a child's heart more nearly breaking.
[CHAPTER X.]
TAKING REFUGE.
For a minute or two I seemed to feel nothing; then there came over me a sort of shiver, partly of cold, for it was very cold, partly of misery. I roused myself, however. With the remembrance of that other evening had come to me also the knowledge of where I was. Only a few yards down the sloping street on the left-hand side came a wide stretch of pavement, and there, in a kind of angle, stood a double door, open on both sides, leading into a small outer hall, from which again another door, glazed at the top, was the entrance to Cranston's show-rooms.
I remembered it all perfectly. Just beyond the inner entrance stood the two carved lions that Haddie and I admired so much. I wished I could see them again, and—yes—a flash of joy went through me at the thought—I could get Mrs. Selwood's address quite as well from old Mr. Cranston as from the big grocer!