Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/102

Rh After a most interesting ride on the top of a tram, a luncheon consisting almost entirely of cream buns, éclairs, ices and tea, and a really exciting journey by Tubes, on which neither had ever travelled before, they came to the big building in Baker Street, and made a leisurely progress through the Halls of Fame, where Byron and Bottomley, Dan Leno and Father Bernard Vaughan, Voltaire, Mrs. Siddons, and Lady Jane Grey compete for the notice of the visitor with those waxen faces that would be exactly lifelike if they were not so exactly like death. They saw Luther and Mary Queen of Scots next-door neighbours, and Burns not too proud to be next door but one to Sir Thomas Lipton. They saw the Grand Hall and the Hall of Kings, which Jane said was like a very nice history lesson. It was when they paused at last before the Coronation Robes of Napoleon and Josephine that Jane said: "I've had enough. Let's get out. I'm beginning to feel as if these people were alive and just going to speak to us."

"We'd better see the Chamber of Horrors now we are here," said Lucilla.

"Well, don't blame me!" said Jane elliptically, and they went forward with new vigour. But when they came out of the Chamber of Horrors even Jane was pale, and Lucilla said:

"It's very much more horrible than you'd think it possibly could be. They're only wood and wax and cloth, and their eyes that seem to look at you are only glass eyes. At least . . . well, if I were to stay in there long I shouldn't be sure of that or anything else. They're uncanny; there's a sort of horrible magic about them."

"That's your highly-strung nature, my child. They're really only wax and glass and wood and clothes and stuffing—just dolls with murderous faces. Well, I don't like the heads myself. But I'll tell you what I think is really much more horrible, in a way."

"Oh, what?" said Lucilla, almost in a whisper.

"Well, I think," said Jane, "that the most horrible