The children engaged all her attention.

She had never seen anything like them; and yet they were obviously boys and girls, and in numbers pretty equally divided, What beat her was that they neither ran about nor played at any game, but walked to and fro--to and fro--as though pacing through some form of drill; and yet again they could not be drilling, for their motions were almost inert and quite aimless.

Next, to her surprise, she perceived that, on no apparent compulsion, the boys kept with the boys in these separate wandering groups, and the girls with the girls; and further that, when two groups met and passed, no greeting, no nod of recognition, was ever exchanged.
At any rate she could detect none.

She had heard tell--indeed, it was an article of faith among the show-children with whom she had been brought up--that the sons and daughters of the well-to-do followed weird ways and practised discomfortable habits--attended public worship on Sundays, for instance, walking two and two in stiff raiment.

But these children were patently very far from well-to-do.