Nancy approached these joys--diffidently and with caution.

She rode upon the horse, opened the doll's-house, embraced the dolls, but she had no natural imagination to bestow upon them, and the horse and the dolls, hurt, perhaps, at their long neglect, received her with frigidity.

Those grubby little children in the Square would, she knew, have been "there" in a moment.

She began then to be frightened.

The nursery, her bedroom, the dark little passage outside, were suddenly alarming.