bout me with much
curiosity. A public place, clearly, though not such as I was used to.
The houses at the back stood on a sort of colonnade, beneath which the
people jostled and crowded. The upper stories were all painted with
wonderful pictures. Above the straight line of the roofs the deep
blue of a cloudless sky stretched from side to side. Lords and ladies
thronged the foreground, while on a dais in the centre a gallant
gentleman, just alighted off his horse, stooped to the fingers of a girl
as bravely dressed out as Selina's lady between the saints; and round
about stood venerable personages, robed in the most variegated clothing.
There were boys, too, in plenty, with tiny red caps on their thick hair;
and their shirts had bunched up and worked out at the waist, just as my
own did so often, after chasing anybody; and each boy of them wore an
odd pair of stockings, one blue and the other red. This system of attire
went straight to my heart. I had tried the same thing so often, and
had met with so much discouragement; and here, at last, was my
justification, painted deliberately in a grown-up book! I looked about
for my saint-friends--the armour-man and the other fellow--but they were
not to be seen--Evidently they were unable to get off duty, even for a
wedding, and still stood on guard in that green meadow down below. I was
disappointed, too, that not an angel was visible. One or two of them,
surely, could easily have been spared for an hour, to run up and see the
show; and they would have been thoroughly at home here, in the midst of
all the colour and the movement and the fun.

But it was time to get on, for clearly the interest was only just
beginning. Over went the next page, and there we were, the whole crowd
of us, assembled in a noble church. It was not easy to make out exactly
what was going on; but in the throng I was delighted to recognize my
angels at last, happy and very much at home. They had managed to get
leave off, evidently, and must have run up the hill and scampered
breathlessly through the gate; and perhaps they cried a little when they
found the square empty, and thought the fun must be all over. Two of
them had got hold of a great wax candle apiece, as much as they could
stagger under, and were tittering sideways at each other as the grease
ran bountifully over their clothes. A third had strolled in among the
company, and was chatting to a young gentleman, with whom she appeared
to be on the b