When they had travelled slowly forward for some short distance, Nell looked around the caravan, and observed it more closely.  One half of it was carpeted, with a sleeping place, after the fashion of a berth on board ship, partitioned off at the farther end, which was shaded with fair, white curtains, and looked comfortable enough,—­though by what kind of gymnastic exercise the lady of the caravan ever contrived to get into it,—­was an unfathomable mystery.  The other half served for a kitchen, and was fitted up with a stove, whose small chimney passed through the roof.  It held, also, a closet or larder, and the necessary cooking utensils, which latter necessaries hung upon the walls, which in the other portion of the establishment were decorated with a number of well-thumbed musical instruments.

Presently the old man fell asleep, and the lady of the caravan invited Nell to come and sit beside her.

“Well, child,” she said, “how do you like this way of travelling?”

Nell replied that she thought that it was very pleasant indeed.  Instead of speaking again, the lady of the caravan sat looking at the child for a long time in silence, then getting up, brought out a roll of canvas about a yard in width, which she laid upon the floor, and spread open with her foot until it nearly reached from one end of the caravan to the other.

“There, child,” she said, “read that.”

Nell walked down it, and read aloud, in enormous black letters, the inscription, “Jarley’s wax-work.”

“Read it again,” said the lady complacently.

“Jarley’s Wax-Work,” repeated Nell.

“That’s me,” said the lady.  “I am Mrs. Jarley.”

The lady of the caravan then unfolded another scroll, whereon was the inscription, “One hundred figures the full size of life,” then several smaller ones with such inscriptions as, “The genuine and only Jarley,” “Jarley is the delight of the nobility and gentry,” “The royal family are the patrons of Jarley.”  When she had exhibited these to the astonished child, she brought forth hand-bills, some of which were couched in the form of parodies on popular melodies, as, “Believe me, if all Jarley’s Wax-Work so rare,” “I saw thy show in youthful prime,” “Over the water to Jarley.”  While others were composed with a view to the lighter and more facetious spirits, as a parody on the favorite air of “If I had a donkey,” beginning: 

     “If I know’d a donkey what wouldn’t go
     To see Mrs. Jarley’s wax-work show,
     Do you think I’d acknowledge him? 
     Oh, no, no! 
     Then run to Jarley’s”—­

besides other compositions in prose, all having the same moral—­namely, that the reader must make haste to Jarley’s, and that children and servants were admitted at half price, Mrs. Jarley then rolled these testimonials up, and having put them carefully away, sat down and looked at the child in triumph.