resolve was not to be
expressed with a pen. Recorded so, it seemed to lose something vital to
its beauty of purpose. However thoughtfully she wrote and obliterated
and wrote again, at the end it always gave the impression of a bargain.
She tore the letter up. No sentence she knew how to write would be heavy
with the velvet glooms of summer nights, prophetic of that supreme
moment now at hand when girlhood should go in a rapture.

A week went by, and Jenny received another post card, postponing the
date of his return to May 1. She was much disappointed, but took the
envelope he had given her at Waterloo, and altered, half in fun, half
seriously, April 23 to May 1.

The night before she was to meet Maurice, there was a heavy fall of
rain reminding her of the night they first drove home together. She lay
awake listening to the pervading sound of the water and thinking how
happy she was. There was no little sister to cuddle now; but with the
thought of Maurice on his way home to her kisses, her imagination was
full of company. It was a morning of gold and silver when she was first
conscious of the spent night. The room was steeped in rich
illuminations. Sparrows twittered very noisily, and their shadows would
sometimes slip across the dingy walls and ceiling. "To-day," thought
Jenny, as, turning over in a radiancy of dreams and blushes and
murmurous awakenings, she fell asleep for two more slow hours of a
lover's absence. The later morning was passed in unpicking and
re-shaping the lucky green hat which had lain hidden since the autumn.
There was no time, however, to perfect its restoration; and Jenny had to
be content with a new saxe-blue dress in which she looked very trim and
eager under a black mushroom hat a-blow with rosebuds.

It was about two o'clock when she went down the steps of 43 Stacpole
Terrace in weather fit for a lovers' meeting. Great swan-white clouds
breasted the deepening azure of May skies. The streets were dazzlingly
wet with the night's rain, and every puddle was as blue as a river. In
front gardens tulips burned with their fiery jets of color and the lime
tree buds were breaking into vivid green fans through every paling,
while in the baskets of flower-women cowslips fresh from chalky pastures
lay close as woven wool. Every blade of grass in the dingy squares of
Camden Town was of emerald, and gardeners were strewing the paths with
bright orange gravel. Children were running against the wind, pink