opped once to see a
fight between five drunken apprentices, as well as several times for
much-needed refreshment.

I had no idea that the scene at the Gardens would be so splendid.
Outside, the road was a block of gleaming chariots and coaches with
servants ablaze in their liveries. Here I left Paddy and Jem to amuse
themselves as suited them.

But the array of carriages had been only a forecast of what my eyes
would encounter in the Garden itself. I was involved at once in a
swarm of fashionable people. My eyes were dazzled with myriad colours,
and my nostrils, trained as they were to peat smoke, were saluted by a
hundred delicious perfumes. Priceless silks and satins swept against
my modest stockings.

I suffered from my usual inclination to run away, but I put it down
with an iron will. I soon found a more retired spot from which I could
review the assemblage at something like my leisure. All the highly
fashionable flock knew each other intimately, it appeared, and they
kept off with figurative pikes attempts of a certain class not quite
so high and mighty, who seemed for ever trying to edge into situations
which would benefit them on the social ladder. Their failures were
dismal, but not so dismal as the heroic smiles with which they covered
their little noiseless defeats.

I saw a lady, sumptuously arrayed, sweep slowly along with her
daughter, a beautiful girl who greatly wished to keep her eyes fixed
on the ground. The mother glanced everywhere with half-concealed
eagerness and anxiety. Once she bowed impressively to a dame with a
cold, pale aristocratic face, around whom were gathered several
officers in the uniform of His Majesty's Guards. The grand dame lifted
her lorgnette and stared coolly at that impressive bow; then she
turned and said something amusing to one of the officers, who
smilingly answered. The mother, with her beautiful daughter, passed
on, both pairs of eyes now on the ground.

I had thought the rebuff would settle this poor misguided creature,
but in the course of an hour I saw three more of her impressive bows
thrown away against the icy faces of other women. But as they were
leaving the Gardens they received attention from members of the very
best society. One lordling nudged another lordling, and they stared
into the face of the girl as if she had been a creature of the street.
Then they leisurely looked her up and down from head to toe. No
tailor could have taken her measurements so