The London season was at its height. The weather was warm and sultry, the days were at their longest. The shops were gay with beautiful dresses, richly trimmed bonnets, gloves, parasols, hats – the thousand and one pretty articles of usefulness and beauty which are considered indispensable by the people who drive about in carriages and live in the large houses in the West End of London.
The time was night, and the more important shops were shut, but the great houses in Grosvenor Square revealed at this moment their fullest and most brilliant life, for this was the time when the great receptions of the season were given.
Before one of the largest and most important of these mansions a small crowd had collected. It was the sort of crowd who are fond of getting peeps inside the lovely palaces which they must not enter. Rough-looking boys, eager, pinched women, a few men, and even some babies were present. They jostled one another, and each in turn tried to force his or her way to the front rank. They made remarks freely with regard to the people who were going inside the house. The beautiful girls and richly dressed matrons called for their outspoken admiration. The men of princely mien and irreproachable attire caused the ragged girls and thin women to think timidly that fairy tales were true, and that real princes did live on the earth. The guests went up the carpeted steps, and disappeared one by one into the mansion. The people in the crowd scarcely breathed as they watched them. How the ladies did trail their long and exquisite robes! How like angels the girls in white looked, how like queens and princesses the older women appeared, how kingly were the gentlemen who accompanied them! Yes, the spectacle was a fairy one; it was delightful to enjoy it all for nothing.
The crowd were in an excellent humour, and did not mind when the policeman somewhat roughly pushed them back. All things considered, they enjoyed themselves quite as well as the people who went into the house, they were not jealous or envious in the least. Standing in front of this motley crowd, so much in front that the brilliant gaslight fell full upon their eager upturned faces, might have been seen a tall girl of about sixteen, and two boys a little younger. The girl was very upright, quite clean in her person, and not only neat, but picturesque in her dress. A many-coloured cotton scarf was twisted in the form of a turban round her head; a large apron of the same material nearly covered her black dress. On her arm she carried a large flat basket filled with roses, narcissus, forget-me-nots, and other summer flowers. Her eyes were very dark and bright, her hair black, her complexion a pure olive. She was not only a handsome girl, but her whole effect was intensely foreign and picturesque. Her carriage was so upright, her simple pose so stately, that one or two ladies and some of the men who were going into the mansion were attracted by her appearance, and remarked her to one another.
The girl gazed after them, her black eyes wide-open, her lips slightly parted, an eager, hungry expression all over her face. The two boys who stood with her kept nudging each other, and whispering together, and making remarks, some under their breath, some out loud, with regard to the gay company who were going into the house.
The girl never spoke. Even when her brothers pushed her roughly, she only moved a little away from them in absolute silence.
“I say, Jill,” – the elder of the lads gave the young flower girl a more violent shove than usual – “be yer goin’ to stay here all night? Most of the folks have come by now, I reckon, and we’d best be moving on; there’s going to be no end of fun presently at that big house over there by the corner.”
Jill shook herself, stared eagerly at the speaker, and then said, in a quick, impassioned voice, “I never see’d nothing like this afore, Bob. Sech dresses, sech faces. Oh, the light and grandeur of it all! I’ve pictured it of course lots and lots o’ times, but I never see’d it afore.”
“I told yer it ’ud be fine,” replied Bob; “come on, you’ll see more of the same sort at the big house at the corner. You take my ’and, Jill, and let us run. We’ll get in front of the crowd ef we are quick.”
“No,” said Jill, “I don’t want to see no other crowd. There were angels and princes and princesses going into that ’ere house. I don’t want to see nothink more – my head’s full o’ the sight, and my eyes sort o’ dazzled. I’m goin’ ’ome now to mother; I ha’ a power o’ news to tell her.”
She turned away as she spoke, moving quickly through the crowd with her free, stately step.
Many people turned to look at her, but she did not appear to see them. Even when one or two called to her to stop and sell some of her flowers, she did not pay the least attention.
The gay streets where the grand folks lived were quickly passed, and Jill found herself in a poor and squalid neighbourhood. The hour was late, but these streets were all alive as if it were noon. Children quarrelled and played in them, women gossiped, men lounged out of the public-houses, stared at Jill and called after her as she walked quickly by.
