ts; then a brass band in full note; and then children,
children, children--little, middling, and big. As the procession curved
down into Trafalgar Road, it grew in stature, until, towards the end of
it, the children were as tall as the adults who walked fussily as hens,
proudly as peacocks, on its flank. And last came a railway lorry on
which dozens of tiny infants had been penned; and the horses of the
lorry were ribboned and their manes and tails tightly plaited; on that
grand day they could not be allowed to protect themselves against flies;
they were sacrificial animals.

A power not himself drew Edwin to the edge of the pavement. He could
read on the immense banner: "Moorthorne Saint John's Sunday School."
These, then, were church folk. And indeed the next moment he descried a
curate among the peacocks. The procession made another curve into
Wedgwood Street, on its way to the supreme rendezvous in Saint Luke's
Square. The band blared; the crimson cheeks of the trumpeters sucked in
and out; the drum-men leaned backwards to balance his burden, and
banged. Every soul of the variegated company, big and little, was in a
perspiration. The staggering bearers of the purple banner, who held the
great poles in leathern sockets slung from the shoulders, and their
acolytes before and behind who kept the banner upright by straining at
crimson halyards, sweated most of all. Every foot was grey with dust,
and the dark trousers of boys and men showed dust. The steamy whiff of
humanity struck Edwin's nostrils. Up hill and down dale the procession
had already walked over two miles. Yet it was alert, joyous, and
expectant: a chattering procession. From the lorry rose a continuous
faint shriek of infantile voices. Edwin was saddened as by pathos. I
believe that as he gazed at the procession waggling away along Wedgwood
Street he saw Sunday schools in a new light.

And that was the opening of the day. There were to be dozens of such
processions. Some would start only in the town itself; but others were
coming from the villages like Red Cow, five sultry miles off.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

THREE.

A young woman under a sunshade came slowly along Wedgwood Street. She
was wearing a certain discreet amount of finery, but her clothes did not
fit well, and a thin mantle was arranged so as to lessen as much as
possible the obviousness of the fact that she was about to beco