Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/227

Rh ugliest, then it was they both felt their absent protector would be most pleased with them.

One day, unexpectedly, in the midst of his absence, Mrs. Beale said to her companion: "We'll go to-night to the thingumbob at Earl's Court;" an announcement putting forth its full lustre when she had made known that she referred to the great Exhibition just opened in that quarter, a collection of extraordinary foreign things in tremendous gardens, with illuminations, bands, elephants, switchbacks and sideshows, as well as crowds of people among whom they might possibly see some one they knew. Maisie flew in the same bound at the neck of her friend and at the name of Sir Claude, on which Mrs. Beale confessed that—well, yes, there was just a chance that he would be able to meet them. He never of course in his terrible position knew what might happen from hour to hour; but he hoped to be free and he had given Mrs. Beale the tip. "Bring her there on the quiet, and I 'll try to turn up"—this was clear enough on what so many weeks of privation had made of his desire to see the child: it even appeared to represent on his part a yearning as constant