He was soon at his ease again, and enjoyed the day thoroughly, and the drive home; but, as they drew near town again, a sense of discomfort and shyness came over him, and he wished the journey to Westminster well over, and hoped that the carman would have the sense to go through the quiet parts of the town.
He was much disconcerted, consequently, when the vans came to a sudden stop, opposite one of the Park entrances, in the Bayswater road. “What in the world is Grey about?” he thought, as he saw him get out, and all the children after him. So he got out himself, and went forward to get an explanation.
“Oh, I have told the man that he need not drive us round to Westminster. He is close at home here, and his horses have had a hard day; so we can just get out and walk home.”
“What, across the Park?” asked Tom.
“Yes, it will amuse the children, you know.”
“But they’re tired,” persisted Tom; “come now, it’s all nonsense letting the fellow off; he’s bound to take us back.”
“I’m afraid I have promised him,” said Grey; “besides, the children all think it a treat. Don’t you all want to walk across the Park?” he went on, turning to them, and a general affirmative chorus was the answer. So Tom had nothing for it but to shrug his shoulders, empty his own van, and follow into the Park with his convoy, not in the best humor with Grey for having arranged this ending to their excursion.
They might have got over a third of the distance between the Bayswater Road and the Serpentine, when he was aware of a small thin voice addressing him.
“Oh, please won’t you carry me a bit? I’m so tired,” said the voice. He turned in some trepidation to look for the speaker, and found her to be a sickly undergrown little girl, of ten or thereabouts, with large pleading gray eyes, very shabbily dressed, and a little lame. He had remarked her several times in the course of the day, not for any beauty or grace about her, for the poor child had none, but for her transparent confidence and trustfulness. After dinner, as they had been all sitting on the grass under the shade of a great elm to hear Grey read a story, and Tom had been sitting a little apart from the rest with his back against the trunk, she had come up and sat quietly down by him, leaning on his knee. Then he had seen her go up and take the hand of the lady who had entertained them, and walk along by her, talking without the least shyness. Soon afterwards she had squeezed into the swing by the side of the beautifully-dressed little daughter of the same lady, who, after looking for a minute at her shabby little sister with large round eyes, had jumped out and run off to her mother, evidently in a state of childish bewilderment as to whether it was not wicked for a child to wear such dirty old clothes.