unset, and an altogether lovely
one. And quite away from the other knots of people, there leaned against
a bit of wire fence a poor old man surrounded by half a dozen children
and one tired woman with a nursing baby. He had a tattered book, which
seemed to be the story of the Gospels, and his little flock sat on the
greensward at his feet as he read. It may be that he, too, had been a
shouter in his lustier manhood, and had held a larger audience together
by the power of his belief; but now he was helpless to attract any but
the children. Whether it was the pathos of his white hairs, his garb of
shreds and patches, or the mild benignity of his eye that moved me, I
know not, but among all the Sunday shouters in Hyde Park it seemed to me
that that quavering voice of the past spoke with the truest note.

Chapter VI. The English Park Lover.

The English Park Lover, loving his love on a green bench in Kensington
Gardens or Regent's Park, or indeed in any spot where there is a green
bench, so long as it is within full view of the passer-by,--this English
public lover, male or female, is a most interesting study, for we have
not his exact counterpart in America. He is thoroughly respectable, I
should think, my urban Colin. He does not have the air of a gay deceiver
roving from flower to flower, stealing honey as he goes; he looks, on
the contrary, as if it were his intention to lead Phoebe to the altar
on the next bank holiday; there is a dead calm in his actions which
bespeaks no other course. If Colin were a Don Juan, surely he would be
a trifle more ardent, for there is no tropical fervour in his
matter-of-fact caresses. He does not embrace Phoebe in the park,
apparently, because he adores her to madness; because her smile is
like fire in his veins, melting down all his defences; because the
intoxication of her nearness is irresistible; because, in fine, he
cannot wait until he finds a more secluded spot: nay, verily, he
embraces her because--tell me, infatuated fruiterers, poulterers,
soldiers, haberdashers (limited), what is your reason? For it does not
appear to the casual eye. Stormy weather does not vex the calm of the
Park Lover, for 'the rains of Marly do not wet' when one is in love.
By a clever manipulation of four arms and four hands they can manage
an umbrella and enfold each other at the same time, though a feminine
macintosh is well known to be ill adapted to the purpose, and a
continuous drizzle would