Page:Burnett - Two Little Pilgrims' Progress A Story of the City Beautiful.djvu/137

Rh 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 colouring 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 flavours were like wine to them. They went from side to side of the rooms, drawn sometimes by a glow of colour, 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 people 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.