Page:Burnett - Two Little Pilgrims' Progress A Story of the City Beautiful.djvu/154

138 Meg had been telling her stories of the Genie 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