Produced by Paul Hollander, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. IN THE CLOSED ROOM by FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT Author of Little Lord Fauntleroy and The Little Princess Illustrations by Jessie Willcox Smith LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS The playing today was even a lovelier, happier thing than it had ever been before . . . . Frontispiece She often sat curving her small long fingers backward They gazed as if they had known each other for ages of years "Come and play with me" She must go and stand at the door and press her cheek against the wood and wait--and listen She began to mount the stairs which led to the upper floors The ledge of the window was so low that a mere step took her outside "I'm going up to play with the little girl, mother . . . You don't mind, do you?" PART ONE In the fierce airless heat of the small square room the child Judith panted as she lay on her bed. Her father and mother slept near her, drowned in the heavy slumber of workers after their day's labour. Some people in the next flat were quarrelling, irritated probably by the appalling heat and their miserable helplessness against it. All the hot emanations of the sun-baked city streets seemed to combine with their clamour and unrest, and rise to the flat in which the child lay gazing at the darkness. It was situated but a few feet from the track of the Elevated Railroad and existence seemed to pulsate to the rush and roar of the demon which swept past the windows every few minutes. No one knew that Judith held the thing in horror, but it was a truth that she did. She was only seven years old, and at that age it is not easy to explain one's self so that older people can understand. She could only have said, "I hate it. It comes so fast. It is always coming. It makes a sound as if thunder was quite close. I can never get away from it." The children in the other flats rather liked it. They hung out of the window perilously to watch it thunder past and to see the people who crowded it pressed close together in the seats, standing in the aisles, hanging on to the straps. Sometimes in the evening there were people in it who were going to the theatre, and the women and girls were dressed in light colours and wore hats covered with white feathers and flowers. At such times the children were delighted, and Judith used to hear the three in the next flat calling out to each other, "That's MY lady! That's MY lady! That one's mine!"