week."

"But if I wait I'll never go! He'll finish his work to-day and spend the
money, and on Monday he'll send me out just the same as before."

And as she continued to plead, almost with tears, so intent was she on
this little outing, her mother at length gave her consent. She even got
her scissors to cut off the ragged fringing from the girl's dress to make
her look more trim, and mended her torn shoes with needle and thread;
then cut her a hunk of bread for her dinner.

"I never see a girl so set on the country," she said, when Fan was about
to start, her thin pale face brightening with anticipation. "It's a long
tramp up the Edgware Road, and not much to see when you git to the
fields."

There would be much to see, Fan thought, as she set out on her
expedition. She had secretly planned it in her mind, and had thought
about it by day and dreamed about it by night--how much there would be to
see!

But the way was long; so long that before she got out of London--out of
that seemingly endless road with shops on either hand--she began to be
very tired. Then came that wide zone surrounding London, of uncompleted
streets and rows of houses partly occupied, separated by wide spaces with
brick-fields, market-gardens, and waste grounds. Here she might have
turned aside to rest in one of the numerous huge excavations, their
bottoms weedy and grass-grown, showing that they had been long abandoned;
but this was not the country, the silent green woods and fields she had
come so far to seek, and in spite of weariness she trudged determinedly