Under Susie’s guidance, however, he saw and learnt a great deal in that first wonderful day. She took him from the Tower, to St. Paul’s, and then to the Abbey, to the Houses of Parliament--to the parks--as she was used to do with strangers, with convalescent patients sometimes, but that more gently--and with their relations and friends who would come up from the country to see somebody in the hospital, and then contemplate longingly the unknown world around them, till Susie, always kind, took pity on their ignorance. By this means she had been trained in the duties of cicerone, and was extremely efficient, knowing just enough and not too much: which is best--for a guide too erudite is a confusion to the simple mind. She took her brother, in the middle of the day, to a modest place on the outskirts of the city, which she knew by this kind of excursion, to give him something to eat, and there pointed out to him what he found as interesting as anything--the young men and middle-aged men of all classes in pursuit of luncheon, crowding every kind of hotel and eating-house. It gave John altogether a new view of that busy life, where there is no time to go home for meals, but where everyone has comfortable means of being fed with no makeshifts or picnic arrangements, but a whole population toiling to supply the brief necessary repast. This, with all its immense supply and demand, and the sight of the men about the streets, plunging into, and being swallowed up in the high buildings which have replaced, in so many cases magnificently, the old shabby offices and chambers in which London laboured and grew rich, was as exciting to John, or perhaps more so, if the truth must be told, than the historical places to which Susie guided him. He was overawed by St. Paul’s, where he stood under the great dome, and heard the waves, so to speak, of the great sea of London dashing outside with a rhythmic force: and the venerable Abbey with all its records went to his heart. But for a youth of his day, standing eagerly upon the verge of life and longing to take part himself in all that was going on, the flood and pressure of men steadily pushing their way along the streets, all with some object or pursuit, pressing in crowds to snatch their hasty meal, pouring back again into every kind of office, in every possible capacity, that was to him the most interesting of all. Should he himself be like that in a day or two? Full of business, full of work, his mind all engaged with something outside of himself, no time to inquire into his own history, or discuss his relationships, or make himself wretched, perhaps, about things that might turn out of so little importance. This was the thought that took entire possession of his mind, as he went on. ‘Do you think you’ll like it, John?’ ‘I don’t know if I’ll like it. That’s not what one wants to know--one wants to know how one is to get on.’