And as she looked up, she saw the tops of the high buildings across the street, and below them the windows hung thick as pictures on a wall, and thicker. The shop doors were open like doors to wonderful, mysterious palaces where you went in with your mother and she picked out your dresses and said: “Wouldn’t you like this one, dear? Mother used to have one like this when _she_ was a little girl.” And Littlegirl saw, too, one of the side streets, and how it was all lined with homes, whose doors were shut, like closed lips with nothing to say to anybody save those who lived there--the children who were promised Christmas trees--and _got_ them, too. And between shops and homes was the world of Skirts and Voices, mothers whose little girls were at home, daddys who would run up the front steps at night and cry: “Come here, Puss. Did you grow any since morning?” Or, “_Where’s my son?_” (Littlegirl knew how it went--she had heard them.) Shops and homes and crowds--a City! A City for everybody but her. When the Earth--who all this time was listening--heard her think that, it made to flow up into her little heart the longing to belong to somebody. And Littlegirl ran straight up to a lady in blue linen, who was passing. “Are you somebody’s muvver?” she asked. The lady looked down in the little face and stood still. “No,” she said soberly. Littlegirl slipped her hand in her white glove. “I aren’t anybody’s little girl,” she said. “Let’s trade each other.” And the Earth, who was listening, made to flow in the lady’s heart an old longing. “Let’s go in here, at any rate,” said the Lady, “and talk it over.” So they went in a wonderful place, all made of mirrors, and jars of bonbons, and long trays, as big as doll cradles, and filled with bonbons too. And they sat at a cool table, under a whirry fan, and had before them thick, foamy, frozen chocolate. And the Blue Linen Lady said:-- “But whose little girl are you, really?” “I’m _my_ little girl, I think,” said Littlegirl. “I don’t know who else’s.” “With whom do you live?” asked the Lady. “Some peoples,” said Littlegirl, “that’s other people’s muvvers. Don’t let’s say about them.” “What shall we say about?” asked the Lady, smiling. “Let’s pretend you was my muvver,” said Littlegirl. The lady looked startled, but she nodded slowly. “Very well,” she said. “I’ll play that. How do you play it?” Littlegirl hesitated and looked down in her chocolate. “I don’t know berry well,” she said soberly. “_You_ say how.” “Well,” said the Lady, “if you were my little girl, I should probably be saying to you, ‘Do you like this, dear? Don’t eat it fast. And take little bits of bites.’ And you would say, ‘Yes, mother.’ And then what?” Littlegirl looked deep down her chocolate. She was making a cave in one side of it, with the foamy part on top for snow. And while she looked the snow suddenly seemed to melt and brim over, and she looked at the lady mutely. “I don’t know how,” she said; “I don’t know how!”