w a good deal about pictures."

Hilda shook her large hat as she drew the roses out of the tall glass.
"No, there are some things you can't do. There's the carriage. Will you
button my gloves for me?"

Bartley took her wrist and began to button the long gray suede glove.
"How gay your eyes are this morning, Hilda."

"That's because I've been studying. It always stirs me up a little."

He pushed the top of the glove up slowly. "When did you learn to take
hold of your parts like that?"

"When I had nothing else to think of. Come, the carriage is waiting.
What a shocking while you take."

"I'm in no hurry. We've plenty of time."

They found all London abroad. Piccadilly was a stream of rapidly
moving carriages, from which flashed furs and flowers and bright winter
costumes. The metal trappings of the harnesses shone dazzlingly, and the
wheels were revolving disks that threw off rays of light. The parks were
full of children and nursemaids and joyful dogs that leaped and yelped
and scratched up the brown earth with their paws.

"I'm not going until to-morrow, you know," Bartley announced suddenly.
"I'll cut off a day in Liverpool. I haven't felt so jolly this long
while."

Hilda looked up with a smile which she tried not to make too glad. "I
think people were meant to be happy, a little," she said.

They had lunch at Richmond and then walked to Twickenham, where they had
sent the carriage. They drove back, with a glorious sunset behind them,
toward the distant gold-washed city. It was one of those rare afternoons
when all the thickness and shadow of London are changed to a kind of
shining, pulsing, special atmosphere; when the smoky vapors become
fluttering golden clouds, nacreous veils of pink and amber; when all
that bleakness of gray stone and dullness of dirty brick trembles in
aureate light, and all the roofs and spires, and one great dome, are
floated in golden haze. On such rare afternoons the ugliest of cities
becomes the most poetic, and months of sodden days are offset by a
moment of miracle.

"It's like that with us Londoners, too," Hilda was saying. "Everything
is awfully grim and cheerless, our weather and our houses and our ways
of amusing ourselves. But we can be happier than anybody. We can go mad
with joy, as the people do out in the fields on a fine Whitsunday. We
make the most of our moment."

She thrust her little chin out defiantly over her gray fur collar, and
Bartley looked down at her