Page:Burnett - Two Little Pilgrims' Progress A Story of the City Beautiful.djvu/115



HE crowd in the depôt surged into the streets and melted into and became an addition to the world of people there. The pavements were moving masses of human beings, the centre of the streets were pandemoniums of waggons and vans, street cars, hotel omnibuses, and carriages. The brilliant morning sunlight dazzled the children's eyes; the roar of wheels, the clamour of car bells, of clattering horses' feet, of cries and shouts and passing voices mingled in a volume of sound that deafened them. The great tidal wave of human life and work and pleasure almost took them off their feet.

They knew too little of cities to have had beforehand any idea of what the overwhelming rush and roar would be, and what slight straws they would feel themselves, upon the current. If they had been quite ordinary children, they might well have