in they
could not be drilling, for their motions were almost inert and quite
aimless. Next, to her surprise, she perceived that, on no apparent
compulsion, the boys kept with the boys in these separate wandering
groups, and the girls with the girls; and further that, when two groups
met and passed, no greeting, no nod of recognition, was ever exchanged.
At any rate she could detect none. She had heard tell--indeed, it was
an article of faith among the show-children with whom she had been
brought up--that the sons and daughters of the well-to-do followed weird
ways and practised discomfortable habits--attended public worship on
Sundays, for instance, walking two and two in stiff raiment. But these
children were patently very far from well-to-do. The garments of some
hung about them in rags that fell short even of Tilda's easy standard.
The spectacle fascinated her. For the moment it chased fear out of her
mind. She was only conscious of pity--of pity afflicting and
indefinable, far beyond her small understanding, and yet perhaps not
wholly unlike that by which the great poet was oppressed as he followed
his guide down through the infernal circles and spoke with their
inhabitants. The sight did her this good--it drove out for a while,
along with fear, all thought of her present situation. She noted that
the majority were in twos or threes, but that here and there a child
walked solitary, and that the faces of these solitary ones were hard to
discern, being bent towards the ground . . .

The door-handle rattled and called her back to terror. She had no time
to clamber down from her chair. She was caught.

But it was a woman who entered, the same that had opened the front gate;
and she carried a tray with a glass of water on it and a plate of
biscuits.

"The Doctor told me as 'ow you might be 'ungry," she explained.

"Thank you," said Tilda. "I--I was lookin' at the view."

For an instant she thought of appealing to this stranger's mercy.
The woman's eyes were hard, but not unkind. They scrutinised her
closely.

"You take my advice, an' get out o' this quick as you can."

The woman thumped down the tray, and made as if to leave the room with a
step decisive as her speech. At the door, however, she hesitated.

"Related to 'im?" she inquired.

"Eh?" Tilda was taken aback. "'Oo's 'im?"

"I 'eard you tell the Doctor you wanted to see 'im."

"An' so I do. But I'm no relation of 'is--on'y a friend."