best
in the autumn. Then only can one see the gleam of its white pavements,
the bold, unbroken outline of its streets. I love the cool vistas one
comes across of mornings in the parks, the soft twilights that linger in
the empty bye-streets. In June the restaurant manager is off-hand with
me; I feel I am but in his way. In August he spreads for me the table
by the window, pours out for me my wine with his own fat hands. I cannot
doubt his regard for me: my foolish jealousies are stilled. Do I care
for a drive after dinner through the caressing night air, I can climb
the omnibus stair without a preliminary fight upon the curb, can sit
with easy conscience and unsquashed body, not feeling I have deprived
some hot, tired woman of a seat. Do I desire the play, no harsh,
forbidding "House full" board repels me from the door. During her
season, London, a harassed hostess, has no time for us, her intimates.
Her rooms are overcrowded, her servants overworked, her dinners
hurriedly cooked, her tone insincere. In the spring, to be truthful, the
great lady condescends to be somewhat vulgar--noisy and ostentatious.
Not till the guests are departed is she herself again, the London that
we, her children, love.

Have you, gentle Reader, ever seen London--not the London of the waking
day, coated with crawling life, as a blossom with blight, but the London
of the morning, freed from her rags, the patient city, clad in mists?
Get you up with the dawn one Sunday in summer time. Wake none else, but
creep down stealthily into the kitchen, and make your own tea and toast.

Be careful you stumble not over the cat. She will worm herself
insidiously between your legs. It is her way; she means it in
friendship. Neither bark your shins against the coal-box. Why the
kitchen coal-box has its fixed place in the direct line between the
kitchen door and the gas-bracket I cannot say. I merely know it as an
universal law; and I would that you escaped that coal-box, lest the
frame of mind I desire for you on this Sabbath morning be dissipated.

A spoon to stir your tea, I fear you must dispense with. Knives and
forks you will discover in plenty; blacking brushes you will put your
hand upon in every drawer; of emery paper, did one require it, there
are reams; but it is a point with every housekeeper that the spoons be
hidden in a different place each night. If anybody excepting herself can
find them in the morning, it is a slur upon her. No matter, a s