TOM got up hungry, and sauntered hungry away, but with his thoughts busy

with the shadowy splendors of his night's dreams. He wandered here and

There in the city, hardly noticing where he was going, or what was happening

Around him. People jostled him and some gave him rough speech; but it was

All lost on the musing boy. By and by he found himself at Temple Bar, the

Farthest from home he had ever traveled in that direction. He stopped and

Considered a moment, then fell into his imaginings again, and passed on

Outside the walls of London. The Strand had ceased to be a country-road then,

And regarded itself as a street, but by a strained construction; for, though

There was a tolerably compact row of houses on one side of it, there were only

Some scattering great buildings on the other, these being palaces of rich

Nobles, with ample and beautiful grounds stretching to the river — grounds

That are now closely packed with grim acres of brick and stone.

Tom discovered Charing Village presently, and rested himself at the beautiful

Cross built there by a bereaved king of earlier days; then idled down a quiet,

lovely road, past the great cardinal's stately palace, toward a far more mighty

And majestic palace beyond — Westminster. Tom stared in glad wonder at

The vast pile of masonry, the wide-spreading wings, the frowning bastions and