The dance house and the narrow alley left behind, Jane was in the street too; she went with the crowd, pulling her hood so as to hide her face. She glanced at the costly goods that lay in confusion on the counters of the stores, and smiled bitterly, taking hold of her own cheap dress; the sleighs almost ran over her, they shot back and forth so wildly, to her whirling brain; a German air that a band was playing on a serenade somewhere in the distance seemed to roar in her ears like thunder. She stopped before a confectioner's. The hot smell of meats came up through the grating where she stood; the window was ablaze with gas, piled high with pyramids of glittering frost, which rose out of a heaped profusion of carved lobster and turkey, and fruits and candies; she saw girls with pretty faces and nice dresses waiting on the fashionable crowd inside, and said to herself that she ought to be there. Some one touched her. It was a girl younger than herself, who stood glaring at the window, shivering in her ragged clothing; her eyes looked unnaturally large out of her sharp, pinched face, daubed with tears and dirt. 'Look a' thar!' she cried eagerly, catching Jane's arm, 'see _them_! Why ben't them mine? Why ben't I in thar, a buyin' o' them? I ort to ride, ortn't I? Why ben't I got nice things on, like a' them thar? Pinchin' Dave's got my dress for three shillin' to-night--the last un I been a savin'; must ha' some drink, so't I'd be forgettin'--to-night, to-night, ye see, I say--hoh!' Giving a wild laugh, the girl ran off. A man inside was looking angrily through the window; so Jane turned from the thoroughfare, and finally struck into the road by which she came. The street lamps had given way to the moon. The flats adjoining the city were all white except marshy spots; passing two tall buildings, that made a sort of gateway, the country spread to the sky unbroken, except where rows of dreary houses, shadowy without the twinkle of a light, stood on some new land; this was not the fashionable road, and it was empty. How pure and cool it was! In the city, there was straggling moonlight, darkened by the brick walls, but no moon; out here, the moon had just broken from a bank of cloud low down, piled on a bank of snow, all looking snowy and alike, the horizon line being hardly distinguishable; the light poured from the edge in a shining flood, and rippled without a sound over the crisp, crusted snow--all of one kin, cold, sparkling, desolate.