CHAPTER XVIII

ENTER AUNT MATILDA

 
 
    

7 KS, they went home in a carriage. John
!) Holt put them into it, and settled back
into it himself, as if comfortable

POSE cushions were only what belonged to
tired people. And he took them to one of the hotels
whose brilliantly lighted fronts they had trudged
wearily by the night before; and they had a good
supper and warm baths and delicious beds, and Meg
went to sleep with actual tears of wonder and grati-
tude on her lashes, and they all three slept the sleep
of Eden, and dreamed the dreams of Paradise. And
in the morning they had breakfast with John Holt in
the hotel dining-room, and a breakfast as good as the
princely dinner he had given them, and after it, they
all went back with him to the City Beautiful, and the
fairy story began again. For, near the entrance where
they went in, they actually found Ben’s mother in
a state of wonder beyond words, for by the use of

' Some magic messenger, that wonderful John Holt had
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