His heart was with the shipping though he could do nothing but look at them, poor boy!" and drying her eyes with her apron she dismissed Sara, who started with a brave heart.
Up the grimy, uninteresting Bryn Street, which the bright morning sunlight scarcely improved, and soon into a wide, busy thoroughfare where hurrying footsteps and jostling crowds somewhat disconcerted her.
The gay shops, especially the fruit shops, interested her greatly, as well as the vehicles of every description, from the humble costermonger's to the handsome broughams bearing their wealthy owners to their offices for the day; the prettily-dressed children who toddled beside their busy mothers to their early shopping; and, above all, the strains of a brass band which was enlivening the morning hours with its familiar _repertoire_.

Each and all were a revelation of delight to the simple peasant.

Straight from the gorse and heather, a woman exceptionally endowed with the instincts of a refined nature, one whose only glimpses of the world had been gathered from the street of a small provincial town, was it to be wondered at that to her the varied sights and sounds around her seemed like the pageantry of a dream?
"'Tis a blue and gold world," she murmured, "and I'm glad I have seen it before I die, but I can't think why the people look so dull and cross." Although she was unconscious of it, she was herself an object of interest to the hurrying passers-by.

Many of them turned round to look at the picturesque peasant woman, with her country gown and quaint headgear.
"A woman come down from the hills," said a lady to her companion, as Sara passed them, for a moment raising her eyes to theirs.
"And what a sweet face, and what wonderful eyes, so dark and blue.
There is something touching in that smooth fringe of grey hair." But Sara passed on unheeding.

She was now in a quieter street, and as she passed under the high grey walls of the jail, the prison van crossed her path.