The child bore upon her arm the little basket with her
flowers, and sometimes stopped, with timid looks, to offer them at some
gay carriage, but, alas! there were many bolder beggars there, adepts at
their trade, and although some ladies smiled gently as they shook their
heads, and others cried: "See, what a pretty face!" they let the pretty
face pass on, and never thought that it looked tired or hungry, and
among all that gay throng, there was but one lady, who, taking her
flowers, put money in the child's trembling hand.
At length, late in the day, Mr. Codlin pitched the show in a convenient
spot, and the spectators were soon in the very triumph of the scene. The
child, sitting down with the old man close behind it, was roused from
her meditation by a loud laugh at some witticism of Mr. Short.
If they were ever to get away unseen, that was the very moment. Short
and Codlin were absorbed in giving the show, and in coaxing sixpences
from the people's pockets, and the spectators were looking on with
laughing faces. That was the moment for escape. They seized it and fled.
They made a path through booths, and carriages, and throngs of people,
and never once stopped to look behind, but creeping under the brow of
the hill at a quick pace, made for the open fields, and not until they
were quite exhausted ventured to sit down to rest upon the borders of a
little wood, and some time elapsed before the child could reassure her
trembling companion, or restore him to a state of moderate
tranquillity.
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