and forwards, just for all the world like a
number of busy ants swarming about an ant-hill. There was no end to
them. They hustled and jostled, and ran and pushed, and talked till
Phyllis was utterly bewildered, and said to herself she had better go
back again.

But where was the turning? It had gone. She could not see it. She
peered out of her retreat.

The street, the people, everything was hidden, except just close at
hand. They were enveloped in a thick, dark, steamy cloud, which
covered all, except the noise. Phyllis ran first this way, then that,
trying in vain to find the turning. Effie grew frightened, and began
to cry, which attracted the notice of a policeman. Phyllis remembered
what her father had said to Donald, so she asked, "Please will you
show us the way home?"

[Illustration]

"Where do you live?" he asked.

"I don't know the name," Phyllis faltered; "it's in a street full of
houses, joined on to each other all in a row, and no garden."

"Well, that isn't much help," he replied, kindly; "where might you be
going to?"

"We were trying to find London," Phyllis said.

"Trying to find it; this is London."

"Oh, no!" Phyllis cried, eagerly; "I mean the golden streets, and the
fountains, and the palaces, and the trains, and the church you can't
see the roof of, and the needle twenty men can't lift, and the golden
carriages, and----"

The man burst into such a laugh that Phyllis stopped short, and
stared at him angrily.

"My big brothers and sisters have gone to look at it. They are doing
it now," Phyllis added.

The policeman paused a moment, and then he said, "Well, look here.
That needle ain't so far off; I'll just take you to see it, and you
may see your brothers and sisters too. Call out directly if you do."

So he took them each by a hand, and trotted them along through the
fog. It was an alarming journey, although the policeman was kind, and
Phyllis felt sure there was no other way of getting home.

When he took them across those dreadful streets, Effie in one arm,
Phyllis hanging on to his other hand, Phyllis shut her eyes in
terror.

But presently they got away from this confusion into a broad paved
place, with trees to be seen here and there. That was much nicer.
Their kind companion told Phyllis to look out for her friends.

"There's the needle," he said, all of a sudden. Phyllis looked up,
and saw a great stone column before them.

"But it's a needle I mean," Phyllis exclai