on, or set against the crop of evil sown by the
dissemination of the vilest literature in the cheapest printed forms, the
attainability, by the poorest, of the noblest productions of literary
genius. Or if in congratulating yourself upon the marvellous progress of
Scientific Inventions, hailing from the keen-brained West, you could
condone the degradation of the English language in the mouths of
Shakespeare's countrymen and countrywomen by the use of American slang
phrases, common, vulgar, coarse, alternating with choice expressions
culled from the vocabulary of the East End costermonger.

Privacy and reticence had become unfashionable, impossible in this, the
era of the guinea-hunting Press-Interviewer. The barriers of social
exclusiveness had given way before the push of the plutocrat. The Rubicon
between good Society and bad Society had become invisible. Racial suicide
and sexual licence most hideously prevailed, spreading like some vile
disease from rank to rank, and class to class. Woman had become less
womanly, man more effeminate. Home was a word that had no longer any
meaning. Religion had decayed; the fear of God had been forgotten. But
Socialism was springing up, a rank and lusty weed, in crude neglected soil
that might have been tilled to good purpose; and a cheap and rowdy form of
patriotism was in a very healthy state, although the Union Jack had not
yet replaced the Bible in the Board Schools.

Yes, things had changed, and not for the better! There was a tang upon the
moral atmosphere that made the material petrol-fumes of the motor-omnibus
almost acceptable by comparison. The air of Gueldersdorp had been cleaner,
even with that taint from the crowded trenches heavy on it. Things had
changed; and in the midst of all these changes, the last sands of the
Great Victorian Age were running out of the glass.

That wonderful life was drawing to its simple, peaceful, noble, profoundly
touching close, this January of 1901. And its ending had been hastened by
the War.

Truly of her it has been said, and shall be; even when scholars of another
race and another civilisation, springing from the ashes of this, wrest
from the relics of a history of to-day the secrets of an ancient Past:

"She was not only the Sovereign, but the Mother of her people."

* * * * *

Saxham turned into Cavendish Square, and was in Harley Street. The
white-enamelled door of a prosperous-looking corner-house