onducted us to it and closed the door. Another short delay and
then, with a whistle as queer and unfamiliar as its own appearance, the
little locomotive began to pull our train out of the station.

Hephzy leaned back against the cushions with a sigh of supreme content.

"And now," said I, "for London. London! think of it, Hephzy!"

Hephzy shook her head.

"I'm thinkin' of it," she said. "London--the biggest city in the world!
Who knows, Hosy? France is such a little ways off; probably Little Frank
has been to London a hundred times. He may even be there now. Who knows?
I shouldn't be surprised if we met him right in London. I sha'n't be
surprised at anything anymore. I'm in England and on my way to London;
that's surprise enough. NOTHIN' could be more wonderful than that."

CHAPTER VI

In Which We Are Received at Bancroft's Hotel and I Receive a Letter

It was late when we reached London, nearly eleven o'clock. The long
train journey was a delight. During the few hours of daylight and dusk
we peered through the car windows at the scenery flying past; at the
villages, the green fields, the hedges, the neat, trim farms.

"Everything looks as if it has been swept and dusted," declared Hephzy.
"There aren't any waste places at all. What do they do with their spare
land?"

"They haven't any," I answered. "Land is too valuable to waste. There's
another thatched roof. It looks like those in the pictures, doesn't it."

Hephzy nodded. "Just exactly," she said. "Everything looks like the
pictures. I feel as if I'd seen it all before. If that engine didn't
toot so much like a tin whistle I should almost think it was a picture.
But it isn't--it isn't; it's real, and you and I are part of it."

We dined on the train. Night came and our window-pictures changed
to glimpses of flashing lights interspersed with shadowy blotches of
darkness. At length the lights became more and more frequent and began
to string out in long lines marking suburban streets. Then the little
locomotive tooted its tin whistle frantically and we rolled slowly under
a great train shed--Paddington Station and London itself.

Amid the crowd on the platform Hephzy and I stood, two lone wanderers
not exactly sure what we should do next. About us the busy crowd jostled
and pushed. Relatives met relatives and fathers and mothers met sons and
daughters returning home after long separations. No one met us, no
one was interested in us at all, except the