nurtured women. Never would he have offered
a barrel to Maggie, and even had he done so Maggie would assuredly have
said that she could make shift well enough without one.

"It's simply perfect for seeing," exclaimed Hilda, as he achieved her
altitude. Her tone was almost cordial. He felt surprisingly at ease.

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

TWO.

The whole Square was now suddenly revealed as a swarming mass of heads,
out of which rose banners and pennons that were cruder in tint even than
the frocks and hats of the little girls and the dresses and bonnets of
their teachers; the men, too, by their neckties, scarves, and rosettes,
added colour to colour. All the windows were chromatic with the hues of
bright costumes, and from many windows and from every roof that had a
flagstaff flags waved heavily against the gorgeous sky. At the bottom
of the Square the lorries with infants had been arranged, and each
looked like a bank of variegated flowers. The principal bands--that is
to say, all the bands that could be trusted--were collected round the
red baize platform at the top of the Square, and the vast sun-reflecting
euphoniums, trumpets, and comets made a glittering circle about the
officials and ministers and their wives and women. All denominations,
for one day only, fraternised effusively together on that platform; for
princes of the royal house, and the Archbishop of Canterbury and the
Lord Mayor of London had urged that it should be so. The Primitive
Methodists' parson discovered himself next but one to Father Milton, who
on any other day would have been a Popish priest, and whose wooden
substitute for a wife was the queen on a chessboard. And on all these
the sun blazed torridly.

And almost in the middle of the Square an immense purple banner bellied
in the dusty breeze, saying in large gold letters, "The Blood of the
Lamb," together with the name of some Sunday school, which Edwin from
his barrel could not decipher.

Then a hoary white-tied notability on the platform raised his might arm
very high, and a bugle called, and a voice that had filled fields in
exciting times of religious revival floated in thunder across the
enclosed Square, easily dominating it--

"Let us sing."

And the conductor of the eager massed bands set them free with a
gesture, and after they had played a stave, a small stentorian choir at
the back of the platform broke forth, and in