not know of anything that might await her in town. She knew more or
less, she believed, what awaited her,--a few parties, a play or two,
the Row in the morning, the pictures, a pleasant little glimpse of the
outside of that fashionable life which was said to be "such a whirl,"
which she had no expectation, nor any desire to see much of. There was
no likelihood that she and her mother would be drawn into that whirl. If
all the people they knew asked them to dinner, or even to a dance, which
was not to be thought of, there would still be no extravagant gaiety in
that. Driving from the railway to Half Moon Street was as pleasant as
anything--to a girl of very highly raised expectations, it might have
been the best of all: but Chatty did not anticipate too much, and would
not be easily disappointed. She neither expected nor was afraid of any
great thing that might be coming to her. Her quiet heart seemed beyond
the reach of any touch of fate.

CHAPTER XXX.

On the mantelpiece of the little lodging-house drawing-room in Half Moon
Street, supported against the gilt group that decorated the timepiece,
was a note containing an invitation. "Why, here is the whirl beginning
already," Mrs. Warrender said. "Don't you feel that you are in the vortex,
Chatty?" Her mother laughed, but was a little excited even by this mild
matter; but Chatty did not feel any excitement. To the elder woman, the
mere sense of the population about her, the hurry in the street, the
commotion in the air, was an excitement. She would have liked to go
out at once, to walk about, to get into a hansom like a man, and drive
through the streets, and see the lights and the glimmer of the shops,
and the crowds of people. To be within reach of all that movement and
rapidity went into her veins like wine. After the solitude and silence
of so many years,--nothing but the rustle of the leaves, the patter
of the rain, the birds or the winds in the branches, and the measured
voices indoors, to vary the quiet,--the roar of Piccadilly mingling with
everything was a sort of music to this woman. To many others, perhaps
the majority, the birds and breezes would be the thing to long for; but
Mrs. Warrender was one of the people who love a town and all that seems
like a larger life in the collection together of many human lives. Whether
it is so or not is another question, or if the massing together of a
multitude of littles ever can make a greatness. It seems to do s