It might have been a month or a week or a day or an hour or even only five minutes or one minute or a second, but when she found herself Somewhere again it was somewhere else.
Mary had been playing in the road, feeling very hungry, with her hands on the soft mud, when this strange sensation came to her and she knew nothing else. And when she opened her eyes again, she was not in the road any longer, as she would have expected; though for some time yet she could not imagine where she was or how she had come there.
She was lying on her back, but not upon the floor of the poor house in William Street; she lay on something quite soft and comfortable far above the boards. All around her she saw an iron rail, and at the corners two bright yellow knobs. Above, she saw a clean white ceiling, whilst the walls, which were a long way from the bed, seemed to be almost hidden by coloured pictures.
Instead of her ragged dress, Mary wore a clean, white night-gown, and there was not a speck of mud on her hands, which astonished her more than anything else.
'They can't be my hands,' she thought; 'they must belong to somebody else. They look quite clean and white, and I am sure I never had white hands before.'
Then some one came to the bed-side and stood staring down into Mary's face. She wore a cotton dress and a white cap and apron such as Mary had never seen before. She had a pale face, and very kind, dark eyes. Mary liked to watch her when she walked about the room, and presently she brought a tray covered by a cloth, on which stood a cup and saucer. She began to feed Mary with a spoon, and Mary thought she had never tasted anything so nice before. She felt as if she did not want anything else in the world—only to know where she was and how she had come here, and whether she should ever be sent back to Mrs. Coppert and William Street.
But although she wanted to know all this, she did not ask any questions just yet, for somehow Mary could not talk as she used to do. But her thoughts grew very busy; she wondered what were the names of the different things she had to eat; she wondered who the tall, dark man with the long beard could be, who came to see her every morning and looked at her right foot and felt her left wrist in a strange way. One day she raised her head from the pillow to look at the foot herself.
'I see you are better this morning,' said the tall man. 'Do you feel better?'
'Quite well, thank you,' answered Mary, and when he went away, Mary looked up at the lady with the kind, dark eyes, and asked, 'What is the matter with my foot, please?'
'Ah! that is to prevent you from running away and leaving us,' was the answer. 'When we bring little girls here we don't want them to run away again.'