for
auld lang syne in their beloved hatching-place. Such violent contrasts
of wealth and poverty as might be looked for in romantic gold-fields, or
in unsettled countries were evolved quite naturally amid a colorless
civilization by a people with an incurable talent for the picturesque.

"Hullo! Can that be you, Betsy?" some grizzled shabby old man would
observe in innocent delight to Mrs. Arthur Montmorenci; "Why so it is!
I never would have believed my eyes! Lord, what a fine woman you've
grown! And so you're little Betsy who used to bring her father's coffee
in a brown jug when he and I stood side by side in the Lane! He used to
sell slippers next to my cutlery stall for eleven years--Dear, dear, how
time flies to be sure."

Then Betsy Montmorenci's creamy face would grow scarlet under the
gas-jets, and she would glower and draw her sables around her, and look
round involuntarily, to see if any of her Kensington friends were within
earshot.

Another Betsy Montmorenci would feel Bohemian for this occasion only,
and would receive old acquaintances' greeting effusively, and pass the
old phrases and by-words with a strange sense of stolen sweets; while
yet a third Betsy Montmorenci, a finer spirit this, and worthier of the
name, would cry to a Betsy Jacobs:

"Is that you, Betsy, how _are_ you? How _are_ you? I'm so glad to see
you. Won't you come and treat me to a cup of chocolate at Bonn's, just
to show you haven't forgot _Olov hasholom_ times?"

And then, having thus thrown the responsibility of stand-offishness on
the poorer Betsy, the Montmorenci would launch into recollections of
those good old "Peace be upon him" times till the grub forgot the
splendors of the caterpillar in a joyous resurrection of ancient
scandals. But few of the Montmorencis, whatever their species, left the
Ghetto without pressing bits of gold into half-reluctant palms in shabby
back-rooms where old friends or poor relatives mouldered.

Overhead, the stars burned silently, but no one looked up at them.
Underfoot, lay the thick, black veil of mud, which the Lane never
lifted, but none looked down on it. It was impossible to think of aught
but humanity in the bustle and confusion, in the cram and crush, in the
wedge and the jam, in the squeezing and shouting, in the hubbub and
medley. Such a jolly, rampant, screaming, fighting, maddening, jostling,
polyglot, quarrelling, laughing broth of a Vanity Fair! Mendicants,
vendors, buyers, gossip