distinct and brilliant, as she might a real picture.

Their destination in London was Batt's Hotel in Dover Street. The old
gentleman on the "Spartacus," who had "crossed" so many times, had
furnished Mrs. Ashe with a number of addresses of hotels and
lodging-houses, from among which Katy had chosen Batt's for the reason
that it was mentioned in Miss Edgeworth's "Patronage." "It was the
place," she explained, "where Godfrey Percy didn't stay when Lord
Oldborough sent him the letter." It seemed an odd enough reason for
going anywhere that a person in a novel didn't stay there. But Mrs. Ashe
knew nothing of London, and had no preference of her own; so she was
perfectly willing to give Katy hers, and Batt's was decided upon.

"It is just like a dream or a story," said Katy, as they drove away from
the London station in a four-wheeler. "It is really ourselves, and this
is really London! Can you imagine it?"

She looked out. Nothing met her eyes but dingy weather, muddy streets,
long rows of ordinary brick or stone houses. It might very well have
been New York or Boston on a foggy day, yet to her eyes all things had a
subtle difference which made them unlike similar objects at home.

"Wimpole Street!" she cried suddenly, as she caught sight of the name on
the corner; "that is the street where Maria Crawford in Mansfield Park,
you know, 'opened one of the best houses' after she married Mr.
Rushworth. Think of seeing Wimpole Street! What fun!" She looked eagerly
out after the "best houses," but the whole street looked uninteresting
and old-fashioned; the best house to be seen was not of a kind, Katy
thought, to reconcile an ambitious young woman to a dull husband. Katy
had to remind herself that Miss Austen wrote her novels nearly a century