PERSEVERE AND PROSPER. to transact some business in the town before they started for Fairdown. While he was engaged, the children found plenty of amusement in watching the great number of people who were going up and down the High-street, which was so narrow that they were obliged to walk in the road as well as on the pavement. Fanny, who knew all about Gravesend, as it was the nearest large town to Fairdown, explained to Arthur that * all these people did not live at Gravesend, but that most of them were people from London, who came out with their families for a day’s pleasure in the fresh air on the river, and to walk about Gravesend. Fanny said that many working-men and quite poor people were able to do this once or twice in the summer, because the fare on the steam- boats was so little. Arthur was very glad to hear this, because he had often pitied the poor pale, dirty children, whom he saw playing in the London streets, and wished they could go to the sea-side and into the country, sometimes as he and his sisters and - 64