As soon as she was dressed (“Muvvers wouldn’t pinch your feet with the button-hook, or tie your ribbon too tight, or get your laxtixs short so’s they pull,” she thought), as soon as she was dressed, and had pressed her feet to Earth, Earth began to talk to her. “Go out and find a mother,” it said to her. “My muvver is dead,” thought the little girl. Earth said: “I am covered with mothers and with those who ought to be mothers. Go to them. Tell them you haven’t any mother. Wouldn’t one of those be next best?” And the Earth said so much, and the little girl’s heart so strongly beat _Mother_, that she could not help going to see. On the street she looked very little and she felt--oh, _much_ littler than in the house with furniture. For the street seemed to be merely a world of Skirts--skirts everywhere and also the bottoms of men’s coats with impersonal Legs below. And these said nothing. Away up above were Voices, talking very fast, and to one another, and entirely leaving her out. She was out of the conversations and out of account, and it felt far more lonely than it did with just furniture. Now and then another child would pass who would look at her as if she really were there; but everyone was hanging on its mother’s hand or her Skirt, or else, if the child were alone, a Voice from ahead or behind was saying: “Hurry, dear. Mother won’t wait. Come and see what’s in _this_ window.” Littlegirl thought how wonderful that would be, to have somebody ahead looking back for her, and she waited on purpose, by a hydrant, and pretended that she was going to hear somebody saying: “_Do_ come on, dear. Mother’ll be late for her fitting.” But nobody said anything. Only an automobile stood close by the hydrant and in it was a little yellow-haired girl, and just at that moment a lady came from a shop and got in the automobile and handed the little girl a white tissue-paper parcel and said: “Sit farther over--there’s a dear. Now, that’s for you, but don’t open it till we get home.” _What_ was in the parcel, Littlegirl wondered, and stood looking after the automobile until it was lost. One little boy passed her, holding tightly to his mother’s hand, and she stooping over him and he _crying_. Littlegirl tried to think what could be bad enough to cry about when you had hold of your mother’s hand and she was bending over you. A stone in your shoe? Or a pin in your neck? Or because you’d lost your locket? But would any of those things matter enough to cry when your mother had hold of your hand? She looked up at the place beside her where her own mother would be walking and tried to see where her face would be.