They passed beneath the snow-white stateliness of the great arch, still hand in hand, and silent. They walked softly, almost as if they felt themselves treading upon holy ground. To their youth and unworn souls it was like holy ground, they had so dreamed of it, they had so longed for it, it had been so mingled in their minds with the story of a city not of this world.

And they stood within the court beyond the archway, the fair and noble colonnade, its sweep of columns, statue-crowned, behind them, the wonder of the City Beautiful spread before. The water of blue lagoons lapped the bases of white palaces, as if with a caress of homage to their beauty. On every side these marvels stood; everywhere there was the green of sward and broad-leaved plants, the sapphire of water, the flood of color and human life passing by, and above it all and enclosing it, the warm, deep, splendid blueness of the summer sky.

It was so white – it was so full of the marvel of color – it was so strange – it was so radiant and unearthly in its beauty.

The two children only stood still and gazed and gazed, with widening eyes and parted lips. They could not have moved about at first; they only stood and lost themselves as in a dream.

Meg was still for so long that Robin, turning slowly to look at her at last, was rather awed.

“Meg!” he said; “Meg!”

“Yes,” she answered, in a voice only half awake.

“Meg! Meg! We are there!”

“I know,” said Meg. “Only it is so like – that other City – that it seems as if – ” She gave a queer little laugh, and turned to look at him. “Rob,” she said, “perhaps we are dead, and have just wakened up.”

That brought them back to earth. They laughed together. No, they were not dead. They were breathless and uplifted by an ecstasy, but they had never been so fully alive before. It seemed as if they were in the centre of the world, and the world was such a bright and radiant and beautiful place as they had never dreamed of.

“Where shall we go first?” said Meg. “What shall we do?”

But it was so difficult to decide that. It did not seem possible to make a plan and follow it. It was not possible for them, at least. They were too happy and too young. Surely visitors to fairy-land could not make plans! They gave themselves up to the spell, and went where fancy led them. And it led them far, and through strange beauties, which seemed like dreams come true. They wandered down broad pathways, past green sward, waving palms, glowing masses of flowers, white balustrades bordering lagoons lightly ruffled by a moment’s wind. Wonderful statues stood on silent guard, sometimes in groups, sometimes majestic colossal figures.

“They look as if they were all watching the thousands and thousands go by,” said Robin.

“It seems as if they must be thinking something about it all,” Meg answered. “It could not be that they could stand there and look like that and not know.”

It was she who soon after built up for them the only scheme they made during those enchanted days. It could scarcely be called a plan of action, it was so much an outcome of imagination and part of a vision, but it was a great joy to them through every hour of their pilgrimage.

Standing upon a fairy bridge, looking over shining canals crossed by these fairy bridges again and again, the gold sun lighting snow-white columns, archways, towers, and minarets, statues and rushing fountains, flowers and palms, her child eyes filled with a deep, strange glow of joy and dreaming.

She leaned upon the balustrade in her favorite fashion, her chin upon her hands.

“We need not pretend it is a fairy story, Robin,” she said. “It is a fairy story, but it is real. Who ever thought a fairy story could come true? I’ve made up how it came to be like this.”

“Tell us how,” said Robin, looking over the jewelled water almost as she did.

“It was like this,” she said. “There was a great Magician who was the ruler of all the Genii in all the world. They were all powerful and rich and wonderful magicians, but he could make them obey him, and give him what they stored away. And he said: ‘I will build a splendid City, that all the world shall flock to and wonder at and remember forever. And in it some of all the things in the world shall be seen, so that the people who see it shall learn what the world is like – how huge it is, and what wisdom it has in it, and what wonders! And it will make them know what they are like themselves, because the wonders will be made by hands and feet and brains just like their own. And so they will understand how strong they are – if they only knew it – and it will give them courage and fill them with thoughts.”

She stopped a moment, and Rob pushed her gently with his elbow.

“Go on,” he said, “I like it. It sounds quite true. What else?”

“And he called all the Genii together and called them by their names. There was one who was the king of all the pictures and statues, and the people who worked at making them. They did not know they had a Genius, but they had, and he put visions into their heads, and made them feel restless until they had worked them out into statues and paintings. And the Great Genius said to him: ‘You must build a palace for your people, and make them pour their finest work into it; and all the people who are made to be your workers, whether they know it or not, will look at your palace and see what other ones have done, and wonder if they cannot do it themselves.’ And there was a huge, huge Genius who was made of steel and iron and gold and silver and wheels, and the Magician said to him: ‘Build a great palace, and make your workers fill it with all the machines and marvels they have made, and all who see will know what wonders can be done, and feel that there is no wonder that isn’t done that is too great for human beings to plan.’ And there was a Genius of the strange countries, and one who knew all the plants and flowers and trees that grew, and one who lived at the bottom of the sea and knew the fishes by name and strode about among them. And each one was commanded to build a palace or to make his people work, and they grew so interested that in the end each one wanted his palace and his people to be the most wonderful of all. And so the City was built, and we are in it, Robin, though we are only twelve years old, and nobody cares about us.”

“Yes,” said Robin, “and the City is as much ours as if we were the Magician himself. Meg, who was the Magician? What was he?”

“I don’t know,” said Meg. “Nobody knows. He is that – that – ” She gave a sudden, queer little touch to her forehead and one to her side. “That, you know, Rob! The thing that thinks– and makes us want to do things and be things. Don’t you suppose so, Rob?”

“The thing that made us want so to come here that we could not bear not to come?” said Robin. “The thing that makes you make up stories about everything, and always have queer thoughts?”

“Yes – that!” said Meg. “And every one has some of it; and there are such millions of people, and so there is enough to make the Great Magician. Robin, come along; let us go to the palace the picture Genius built, and see what his people put in it. Let us be part of the fairy story when we go anywhere. It will make it beautiful.”

They took their fairy story with them and went their way. They made it as much the way of a fairy story as possible. They found a gondola with a rich-hued, gay-scarfed gondolier, and took their places.

“Now we are in Venice,” Meg said, as they shot smoothly out upon the lagoon. “We can be in any country we like. Now we are in Venice.”

Their gondola stopped, and lay rocking on the lagoon before the palace’s broad white steps. They mounted them, and entered into a rich, glowing world, all unknown.

They knew little of pictures, they knew nothing of statuary, but they went from room to room, throbbing with enjoyment. They stopped before beautiful faces and happy scenes, and vaguely smiled, though they did not know they were smiling; they lingered before faces and figures that were sad, and their own dark little faces grew soft and grave. They could not afford to buy a catalogue, so they could only look and pity and delight or wonder.

“We must make up the stories and thoughts of them ourselves,” Robin said. “Let’s take it in turns, Meg. Yours will be the best ones, of course.”

And this was what they did. As they passed from picture to picture, each took turns at building up explanations. Some of them might have been at once surprising and instructive to the artist concerned, but some were very vivid, and all were full of young directness and clear sight, and the fresh imagining and coloring of the unworn mind. They were so interested that it became like a sort of exciting game. They forgot all about the people around them; they did not know that their two small, unchaperoned figures attracted more glances than one. They were so accustomed to being alone, that they never exactly counted themselves in with other people. And now, it was as if they were at a banquet, feasting upon strange viands, and the new flavors were like wine to them. They went from side to side of the rooms, drawn sometimes by a glow of color, sometimes by a hinted story.

“We don’t know anything about pictures, I suppose,” said Meg, “but we can see everything is in them. There are the poor, working in the fields and the mills, being glad or sorry; and there are the rich ones, dancing at balls and standing in splendid places.”

“And there are the good ones and the bad ones. You can see it in their faces,” Rob went on, for her.

“Yes,” said Meg; “richness and poorness and goodness and badness and happiness and gladness. The Genius who made this palace was a very proud one, and he said he would put all the world in it, even if his workers could only make pictures and statues.”

“Was he the strongest of all?” asked Robin, taking up the story again with interest.

“I don’t know,” Meg answered; “sometimes I think he was. He was strong – he was very strong.”

They had been too deeply plunged into their mood to notice a man who stood near them, looking at a large picture. In fact, the man himself had not at first noticed them, but when Meg began to speak her voice attracted him. He turned his head, and looked at her odd little reflecting face, and, after having looked at it, he stood listening to her. An expression of recognition came into his strong, clean-shaven face.

“You two again!” he said, when she had finished. “And you have got here.” It was their man again.

“Yes,” answered Meg, her gray eyes revealing, as she lifted them to his face, that she came back to earth with some difficulty.

“How do you like it, as far as you’ve gone?” he asked.

“We are making believe that it is a fairy story,” Meg answered; “and it’s very easy.”

And then a group of people came between and separated them.

XII

How tired they were when they came out from the world of pictures into the world of thronging people! How their limbs ached and they were brought back to the realization that they were creatures with human bodies, which somehow they seemed to have forgotten!

When they stood in the sunshine again Robin drew a long breath.

“It is like coming out of one dream into another,” he said. “We must have been there a long time. I didn’t know I was tired and I didn’t know I was hungry, but I am both. Are you?”

She was as tired and hungry as he was.

“Dare we buy a sandwich to eat with our eggs?” she said.

“Yes, I think we dare,” Robin answered. “Where shall we go and eat them?”

There was no difficulty in deciding. She had planned it all out, and they so knew the place by heart that they did not need to ask their way. It was over one of the fairy bridges which led to a fairy island. It was softly wooded, and among the trees were winding paths and flowers and rustic seats, and quaint roofs peering above the greenness of branches. And it was full of the warm scent of roses, growing together in sumptuous thousands, their heavy, sweet heads uplifted to the sun, or nodding and leaning towards their neighbors’ clusters.

The fairy bridge linked it to the wonderful world beyond, but by comparison its bowers were almost quiet. The crowd did not jostle there.

“And we shall be eating our lunch near thousands and thousands of roses. It will be like the ‘Arabian Nights.’ Let us pretend that the rose who is queen of them all invited us, because we belong to nobody,” Meg said.

They bought the modest addition to their meal, and carried the necessary, ever-present satchel to their bower. They were tired of dragging the satchel about, but they were afraid to lose sight of it.

“It’s very well that it is such a small one, and that we have so little in it,” Robin said. They chose the most secluded corner they could find, as near to the rose garden as possible, and sat down and fell upon their scant lunch as they had fallen upon their breakfast.

It was very scant for two ravenously hungry children, and they tried to make it last as long as possible. But scant as it was, and tired as they were, their spirits did not fail them.

“Perhaps, if we eat it slowly, it will seem more,” said Meg, peeling an egg with deliberation, but with a very undeliberate feeling in her small stomach. “Robin, did you notice our man?”

“I saw him, of course,” answered Robin; “he’s too big not to see.”

“I noticed him,” continued Meg. “Robin, there’s something the matter with that man. He’s a gloomy man.”

“Well, you noticed him quickly,” Robin responded, with a shade of fraternal incredulity. “What’s happened to him?”

Meg’s eyes fixed themselves on a glimpse of blue water she saw through the trees. She looked as if she were thinking the matter over.

“How do I know?” she said; “I couldn’t. But, somehow, he has a dreary face, as if he had been thinking of dreary things. I don’t know why I thought that all in a minute, but I did, and I believe it’s true.”

“Well, if we should see him again,” Robin said, “I’ll look and see.”

“I believe we shall see him again,” said Meg. “How many eggs have we left, Robin?”

“We only brought three dozen,” he answered, looking into the satchel; “and we ate seven this morning.”

“When you have nothing but eggs, you eat a good many,” said Meg, reflectively. “They won’t last very long. But we couldn’t have carried a thousand eggs, even if we had had them” – which was a sage remark.

“We shall have to buy some cheap things,” was Robin’s calculation. “They’ll have to be very cheap, though. We have to pay a dollar, you know, every day, to come in; and if we have no money we can’t go into the places that are not free; and we want to go into everything.”

“I’d rather go in hungry than stay outside and have real dinners, wouldn’t you?” Meg put it to him.

“Yes, I would,” he answered, “though it’s pretty hard to be hungry.”

They had chosen a secluded corner to sit in, but it was not so secluded that they had it entirely to themselves. At a short distance from them, in the nearest bowery nook, a young man and woman were eating something out of a basket. They looked like a young country pair, plain and awkward, and enjoying themselves immensely. Their clothes were common and their faces were tanned, as if from working out of doors. But their basket evidently contained good, home-made things to eat. Meg caught glimpses of ham and chicken, and something that looked like cake. Just at that moment they looked so desperately good that she turned away her eyes, because she did not want to stare at them rudely. And as she averted them, she saw that Robin had seen, too.

“Those people have plenty to eat,” he said, with a short, awkward laugh.

“Yes,” she answered. “Don’t let us look. We are here, Robin, anyway, and we knew we couldn’t come as other people do.”

“Yes,” he said, “we are here.”

The man and his wife finished their lunch, and began putting things in order in their basket. As they did it, they talked together in a low voice, and seemed to be discussing something. Somehow, in spite of her averted eyes, Meg suddenly felt as if they were discussing Robin and herself, and she wondered if they had caught her involuntary look.

“I think, Robin,” said Meg – “I think that woman is going to speak to us.”

It was evident that she was. She got up and came towards them, her husband following her rather awkwardly.

She stopped before them, and the two pairs of dark eyes lifted themselves to her face.

“I’ve just been talking to my man about you two,” she said. “We couldn’t help looking at you. Have you lost your friends?”

“No, ma’am,” said Robin, “we haven’t got any; I mean, we’re not with any one.”

The woman turned and looked at her husband.

“Well, Jem!” she exclaimed.

The man drew near and looked them over.

He was a raw-boned, big young man, with a countrified, good-natured face.

“You haven’t come here alone?” he said.

“Yes,” said Robin. “We couldn’t have come, if we hadn’t come alone. We’re not afraid, thank you. We’re getting along very well.”

“Well, Jem!” said the woman again.

She seemed quite stirred. There was something in her ordinary, good-natured face that was quite like a sort of rough emotion.

“Have you plenty of money?” she asked.

“No,” said Robin, “not plenty, but we have a little.”

She put her basket down and opened it. She took out some pieces of brown fried chicken; then she took out some big slices of cake, with raisins in it. She even added some biscuits and slices of ham. Then she put them in a coarse, clean napkin.

“Now, look here,” she said, “don’t you go filling up with candy and peanuts, just because you are by yourselves. You put this in your bag, and eat it when you’re ready. ’T any rate, it’s good, home-made victuals, and won’t harm you.”

And in the midst of their shy thanks, she shut the basket again and went off with her husband, and they heard her say again, before she disappeared,

“Well, Jem!”

XIII

Yes, there were plenty of kind people in the world, and one of the best proofs of it was that, in that busy, wonderful place through which all the world seemed passing, and where, on every side, were a thousand things to attract attention, and so fill eyes and mind that forgetfulness and carelessness of small things might not have been quite unnatural, these two small things, utterly insignificant and unknown to the crowds they threaded, met many a passing friend of the moment, and found themselves made happier by many a kindly and helpful word or look. Officials were good-natured to them, guides were good-humored, motherly women and fatherly men protected them in awkward crowds. They always saw that those who noticed them glanced about for their chaperons, and again and again they were asked who was taking care of them; but Robin’s straightforward, civil little answer, “We’re taking care of ourselves,” never failed to waken as much friendly interest as surprise.

They kept up their fairy story of the Great Genius, and called things by fairy-story names, and talked to each other of their fairy-story fancies about them. It was so much more delightful to say: “Let us go to the Palace of the Genius of the Sea,” than to say, “Let us go to the Fisheries’ building.” And once in the palace, standing among great rocks and pools and fountains, with water splashing and tumbling over strange sea-plants, and strange sea-monsters swimming beneath their eyes in green sea-water, it was easy to believe in the Genius who had brought them all together.

“He was very huge,” Meg said, making a picture of him. “He had monstrous eyes, that looked like the sea when it is blue; he had great, white coral teeth, and he had silver, scaly fishskin wound round him, and his hair was long sea-grass and green and brown weeds.”

They stood in grottoes and looked down into clear pools, at swift-darting things of gold and silver and strange prismatic colors. Meg made up stories of tropical rivers, with palms and jungle cane fringing them, and tigers and lions coming to lap at the brink. She invented rushing mountain streams and lakes, with speckled trout leaping; and deep, deep seas, where whales lay rocking far below, and porpoises rolled, and devil-fish spread hideous, far-reaching tentacles for prey.

Oh, what a day it was! What wonders they saw and hung over, and dwelt on with passions of young delight! The great sea gave up its deep to them; great forests and trackless jungles their wonderful growths; kings’ palaces and queens’ coffers their rarest treasures; the ages of long ago their relics and strange legends, in stone and wood and brass and gold.

They did not know how often people turned and stopped to look at their two little, close-leaning figures and vivid, dark, ecstatic-eyed faces. They certainly never chanced to see that one figure was often behind them at a safe distance, and seemed rather to have fallen into the habit of going where they went and listening to what they said. It was their man, curiously enough, and it was true that he was rather a gloomy-looking man, when one observed him well. His keen, business-like, well-cut face had a cloud resting upon it; he looked listless and unsmiling, even in the palaces that most stirred the children’s souls; and, in fact, it seemed to be their odd enthusiasm which had attracted him a little, because he was in the mood to feel none himself. He had been within hearing distance when Meg had been telling her stories of the Genius of the Palace of the Sea, and a faint smile had played about his mouth for a moment. Then he had drawn a trifle nearer, still keeping out of sight, and when they had moved he had followed them. He had been a hard, ambitious, wealth-gaining man all his life. A few years before he had found a new happiness, which softened him for a while, and made his world seem a brighter thing. Then a black sorrow had come upon him, and everything had changed. He had come to the Enchanted City, not as the children had come, because it shone before them, a radiant joy, but because he wondered if it would distract him at all. All other things had failed; his old habits of work and scheme, his successes, his ever-growing fortune, they were all as nothing. The world was empty to him, and he walked about it feeling like a ghost. The little dark, vivid faces had attracted him, he did not know why, and when he heard the story of the Palace of the Sea, he was led on by a vague interest.

He was near them often during the day, but it was not until late in the afternoon that they saw him themselves, when he did not see them. They came upon him in a quiet spot where he was sitting alone. On a seat near him sat a young woman, resting, with a baby asleep in her arms. The young woman was absorbed in her child, and was apparently unconscious of him. His arms were folded and his head bent, but he was looking at her in an absent, miserable way. It was as if she made him think of something bitter and sad.

Meg and Robin passed him quietly.

“I see what you meant, Meg,” Robin said. “He does look as if something was the matter with him. I wonder what it is?”

When they passed out of the gates at dusk, it was with worn-out bodies, but enraptured souls. In the street-car, which they indulged in the extravagance of taking, the tired people, sitting exhaustedly in the seats and hanging on to straps, looked with a sort of wonder at them, their faces shone so like stars. They did not know where they were going to sleep, and they were more than ready for lying down, but they were happy beyond words.

They went with the car until it reached the city’s heart, and then they got out and walked. The streets were lighted, and the thoroughfares were a riot of life and sound. People were going to theatres, restaurants, and hotels, which were a blaze of electric radiance. They found themselves limping a little, but they kept stoutly on, holding firmly to the satchel.

“We needn’t be afraid of going anywhere, however poor it looks,” Robin said, with a grave little elderly air. He was curiously grave for his years, sometimes. “Anybody can see we have nothing to steal. I think any one would know that we only want to go to bed.”

It was a queer place they finally hit upon. It was up a side street, which was poorly lighted, and where the houses were all shabby and small. On the steps of one of them a tired-looking woman was sitting, with a pale, old-faced boy beside her. Robin stopped before her.

“Have you a room where my sister could sleep, and I could have a mattress on the floor, or lie down on anything?” he said. “We can’t afford to go anywhere where it will cost more than fifty cents each.”

The woman looked at them indifferently. She was evidently very much worn out with her day’s work, and discouraged by things generally.

“I haven’t anything worth more than fifty cents, goodness knows,” she answered. “You must be short of money to come here. I’ve never thought of having roomers.”

“We’re poor,” said Robin, “and we know we can’t have anything but a poor room. If we can lie down, we are so tired we shall go to sleep anywhere. We’ve been at the Fair all day.”

The pale little old-faced boy leaned forward, resting his arm on his mother’s knee. They saw that he was a very poor little fellow, indeed, with a hunch back.

“Mother,” he said, “let ’em stay; I’ll sleep on the floor.”

The woman gave a dreary half laugh, and got up from the step. “He’s crazy about the Fair,” she said. “We hain’t no money to spend on Fairs, and he’s most wild about it. You can stay here to-night, if you want to.”

She made a sign to them to follow her. The hunchback boy rose too, and went into the dark passage after them. He seemed to regard them with a kind of hunger in his look.

They went up the narrow, steep staircase. It was only lighted by a dim gleam from a room below, whose door was open. The balustrades were rickety, and some of them were broken out. It was a forlorn enough place. The hunchback boy came up the steps, awkwardly, behind them. It was as if he wanted to see what would happen.

They went up two flights of the crooked, crazy stairs, and at the top of the second flight the woman opened a door.

“That’s all the place there is,” she said. “It isn’t anything more than a place to lie down in, you see. I can put a mattress on the floor for you, and your sister can sleep in the cot.”

“That’s all we want,” replied Robin.

But it was a poor place. A room, both small and bare, and with broken windows. There was nothing in it but the cot and a chair.

“Ben sleeps here,” the woman said. “If I couldn’t make him a place on the floor, near me, I couldn’t let it to you.” Meg turned and looked at Ben. He was gazing at her with a nervous interest.

“We’re much obliged to you,” she said.

“It’s all right,” he said, with eager shyness. “Do you want some water to wash yourselves with? I can bring you up a tin basin and a jug. You can set it on the chair.”

“Thank you,” they both said at once. And Robin added, “We want washing pretty badly.”

Ben turned about and went down-stairs for the water as if he felt a sort of excitement in doing the service. These two children, who looked as poor as himself, set stirring strange thoughts in his small, unnourished brain.

He brought back the tin basin and water, a piece of yellow soap, and even a coarse, rather dingy, towel. He had been so eager that he was out of breath when he returned, but he put the basin on the chair and the tin jug beside it, with a sort of exultant look in his poor face.

“Thank you,” said Meg again; “thank you, Ben.”

She could not help watching him as his mother prepared the rather wretched mattress for Robin. Once he caught the look of her big, childish, gray eyes as it rested upon him with questioning sympathy, and he flushed up so that even by the light of the little smoky lamp she saw it. When the woman had finished she and the boy went away and left them, and they stood a moment looking at each other. They were both thinking of the same thing, but somehow they did not put it into words.

“We’ll wash off the dust first,” said Robin, “and then we’ll eat some of the things we have left from what the woman gave us. And then we’ll go to bed, and we shall drop just like logs.”

And this they did, and it was certainly a very short time before the smoky little lamp was out, and each had dropped like a log and lay stretched in the darkness, with a sense of actual ecstasy in limbs laid down to rest and muscles relaxed for sleeping.

“Robin,” said Meg, drowsily, through the dark that divided them, “everybody in the world has something to give to somebody else.”

“I’m thinking that, too,” Robin answered, just as sleepily; “nobody is so poor – that – he – hasn’t anything. That – boy – ”

“He let us have his hard bed,” Meg murmured, “and he – hasn’t seen – ”

But her voice died away, and Robin would not have heard her if she had said more. And they were both fast, fast asleep.