"
After a while we came to a broad road, full of good houses, and then the
old driver cried "Ilford," and asked what part of it I wished to go to.
I reached forward and told him, "10 Lennard's Row, Lennard's Green," and
then sat back with a lighter heart.
But after another little while I saw a great many funeral cars passing
us, with the hearses empty, as if returning from a cemetery. This made
me think of the woman and her story, and I found myself unconsciously
clasping my baby closer.
The corteges became so numerous at last that to shut out painful sights
I closed my eyes and tried to think of pleasanter things.
I thought, above all, of Mrs. Oliver's house, as I had always seen it in
my mind's eye--not a pretentious place at all, only a little humble
cottage but very sweet and clean, covered with creepers and perhaps with
roses.
I was still occupied with these visions when I felt the cab turn sharply
to the left. Then opening my eyes I saw that we were running down a kind
of alley-way, with a row of very mean little two-storey houses on the
one side, and on the other, a kind of waste ground strewn with broken
bottles, broken iron pans, broken earthenware and other refuse,
interspersed with tufts of long scraggy grass, which looked the more
wretched because the sinking sun was glistening over it.
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