glimpses now and again, were a constant pleasure to Katy, with their mullioned windows, twisted chimney stacks, porches of quaint build, and thick-growing ivy. She contrasted them with the uncompromising ugliness of farmhouses she remembered at home, and wondered whether it could be that at the end of another thousand years or so America would have picturesque buildings like those to show in addition to her picturesque scenery.

Suddenly, into the midst of these reflections there glanced a picture so vivid that it almost took away her breath, as the train steamed past a pack of hounds in full cry, followed by a galloping throng of scarlet- coated huntsmen. One horse and rider were in the air, going over a wall. Another was just rising to the leap. A string of others, headed by a lady, were tearing across a meadow bounded by a little brook, and beyond that streamed the hounds following the invisible fox. It was like one of Muybridge's instantaneous photographs of `The Horse in Motion', for the moment that it lasted, and Katy put it away in her memory, 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 Sheet!' 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 ago, that London was a `growing' place, and that things were probably much changed since that day.

More `fun' awaited them when they arrived at Batt's, and exactly such a landlady sailed forth to welcome them as they had often met with in books an old landlady, smiling and rubicund, with a towering lace cap on her head, a flowered silk gown, a gold chain, and a pair of fat mittened hands demurely crossed over a black brocade apron. She alone would have been worth crossing the ocean to see, they all declared. Their telegram had been received, and rooms were ready, with a bright, smoky fire of soft coals; the dinner table was set, and a nice, formal, white-cravatted old waiter, who seemed to have stepped out of the same book with the landlady, was waiting to serve it. Everything was dingy and old fashioned, but very clean and comfortable, and Katy concluded that on the whole Godfrey Percy would have done wisely to go to Batt's, and could have fared no better at the other hotel where he did stay.

The first of Katy's `London sights' came to her next morning before she was out of her bedroom. She heard a bell ring and a queer, squeaking little voice utter a speech of which she could not make out a single world. Then came a laugh and a shout, as if several boys were amused at something or other; altogether her curiosity was roused, so that she finished dressing as fast as she could, and ran to the drawing room window, which commanded a view of the street. Quite a little crowd was collected under the window, and in their midst was a queer box raised high on poles, with little red curtains tied back on either side


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