Page:Burnett - Two Little Pilgrims' Progress A Story of the City Beautiful.djvu/223

Rh "It's a queer sight," she said to John Holt; "but I don't see what good all this is going to do anyone."

"It saves travelling expenses," answered John Holt, laughing. His shrewd, humorous face was very full of expression all the time they were walking about together. She had only come for the day, and she was going back by a night train. When she left them, she gave them both one of those newly appreciative looks.

"Well," she said, "Mr. Holt's going to look after you, he says. He's got something to tell you when I'm gone. We've talked it over, and it's all right. There's one thing sure. You're two of the luckiest young ones Ive heard of." And she marched away briskly.

Meg and Robin looked at each other and at John Holt. What was he going to tell them? But he told them nothing until they had all dined, and Ben and his mother had gone home, prepared to come again the next day.

By that time the City Beautiful was wreathed with its enchanted jewels of light again, and in the lagoon's depths they trembled and blazed. John Holt called a gondola with a brilliant gondolier, and they got into it and shot out into the radiant night.

The sight was so unearthly in its beauty that for