She flew to the open space below, and perched on the statue of Queen Anne, to watch with sorrowing eyes the tired and hurrying people. Poor shadows! In a little while they would be back again in the ground which gave them, their opportunities for kindness and happiness ended; and here they were, thinking only of to-day’s gains, rushing after the mirage, losing what mattered. She had grown weary almost to weeping of the sordid scene, and was thinking miserably of its contrast with Fairyland. Oh, why had the elves forsaken London?--when--there was Bim! The gnome was toiling up Ludgate Hill. He seemed to have shrunk and become a very pale red. Weariness and bewilderment had, for the time being, taken the colour out of him. He was awe-struck and terrified by the rolling volume of traffic, which, though it could not possibly have hurt him, seemed very formidable. He looked with round eyes at the lumbering vehicles, and though to him they were really but shadows bearing all manner and shapes of shade, he was bewildered by their multitude and variety. With its shining slope and insistent traffic, he found Ludgate Hill a trying and slippery ordeal. He was repeatedly in straits during that scrambling ascent. The horses could see him; the human beings could not. Time and again a boot threatened him, a skirt swished by him; the wheels of a vehicle often seemed over him; but always he managed--though not without numerous sprawls and tumbles--to avoid contact with the objectionable shadows. He reached the top of the hill and stood panting and triumphant. Suddenly he saw June, a fairy crowning the effigy of the queen who is dead. He squealed with joy and stared in goggle-eyed rapture. Hoo-oo-oo-oo-ray! His happiness received a check. A scavenger boy, running along, crouching, scooping up refuse, scooped up Bim! Before the gnome could say "Robinson" he was up, carried away to a receptacle for dirt, and forthwith tumbled in. He crawled out puffing and disillusioned. He blessed the scavenger boy thoughtfully for his hospitality; squatted bewildered upon the kerb; then, remembering, turned about and lost all woes, aches and weariness in the joy of seeing June. "Bim, my brave Bim," she greeted him. He stared open-mouthed, panting and smiling. He had now no words for answer, and needed none. *CHAPTER V* *TOM TIDDLER’S GROUND* Bim was almost top-heavy with joy at meeting June just when his hopes had been at their lowest; she was hardly less delighted at seeing him. For not only was the gnome something from Fairyland, a reminder of its dear delights and golden days, and the means of strengthening her strained determinations; but he had come from her own particular corner of the delectable realm, the Land of Wild Roses, and brought to jaded Cockneydom some fragrant home memories.