ssengers who are passing
stop under the window to listen, till one of them is imprudent enough
to cry 'Encore,' when down go the windows, and the harmonious sounds
are shut in from vulgar ears.

It is by this time nearly half-past nine o'clock, and now comes the
regular nightly 'tramp, tramp' of the police, marching in Indian file,
and heavily clad in their night-gear. They come to replace the
guardians of the day by those of the night. One of the number falls
out of the line on the terrace, where he commences his nocturnal
wanderings, and guarantees the peace and safety of the inhabitants for
the succeeding eight hours: the rest tramp onwards to their distant
stations. The echoes of their iron heels have hardly died away, when
there is a sudden and almost simultaneous eruption from every
garden-gate on the terrace of clean-faced, neat-aproned, red-elbowed
servant-girls, each and all armed with a jug or a brace of jugs, with
a sprinkling of black bottles among them, and all bound to one or
other of the public-houses which guard the terrace at either end. It
is the hour of supper; and the supper-beer, and the after-supper
nightcaps, for those who indulge in them, have to be procured from the
publican. This is an occasion upon which Betty scorns to hurry; but
she takes time by the forelock, starting for the beer as soon as the
cloth is laid, and before master has finished his pipe, or his game of
chess, or Miss Clementina her song, in order that she may have leisure
for a little gossip with No. 7 on the one hand, or No. 9 on the
other. She goes out without beat of drum, and lets herself in with the
street-door key without noise, bringing home, besides the desiderated
beverage, the news of the day, and the projects of next-door for the
morrow, with, it may be, a plan for the enjoyment of her next monthly
holiday.

Supper is the last great business of the day upon Our Terrace, which,
by eleven at night, is lapped in profound repose. The moon rides high
in mid-sky, and the black shadows of the trees lie motionless on the
white pavement. Not a footfall is heard abroad; the only sound that is
audible as you put your head out of the window, to look up at the
glimmering stars and radiant moon, is the distant and monotonous
murmur of the great metropolis, varied now and then by the shrill
scream of a far-off railway-whistle, or the 'cough, cough, cough' of
the engine of some late train. We are sober folks on the terrace, and
a