Pendyce. A delicious sense of entering the unknown, of braving the
unexpected, and of the power to go on doing this delightfully for ever,
enveloped her with the gay London air of this bright June day. She
passed a perfume shop, and thought she had never smelt anything so nice.
And next door she lingered long looking at some lace; and though she
said to herself, "I must not buy anything; I shall want all my money
for poor George," it made no difference to that sensation of having all
things to her hand.

A list of theatres, concerts, operas confronted her in the next window,
together with the effigies of prominent artistes. She looked at them
with an eagerness that might have seemed absurd to anyone who saw her
standing there. Was there, indeed, all this going on all day and every
day, to be seen and heard for so few shillings? Every year, religiously,
she had visited the opera once, the theatre twice, and no concerts;
her husband did not care for music that was "classical." While she was
standing there a woman begged of her, looking very tired and hot, with
a baby in her arms so shrivelled and so small that it could hardly be
seen. Mrs. Pendyce took out her purse and gave her half a crown, and as
she did so felt a gush of feeling which was almost rage.

'Poor little baby!' she thought. 'There must be thousands like that, and
I know nothing of them!'

She smiled to the woman, who smiled back at her; and a fat Jewish youth
in a shop doorway, seeing them smile, smiled too, as though he found
them charming. Mrs. Pendyce had a feeling that the town was saying
pretty things to her, and this was so strange and pleasant that she
could hardly believe it, for Worsted Skeynes had omitted to say that
sort of thing to her for over thirty years. She looked in the window of
a hat shop, and found pleasure in the sight of herself. The window was
kind to her grey linen, with black velvet knots and guipure, though it
was two years old; but, then, she had only been able to wear it once
last summer, owing to poor Hubert's death. The window was kind, too,
to her cheeks, and eyes, which had that touching brightness, and to the
silver-powdered darkness of her hair. And she thought: 'I don't look so
very old!' But her own hat reflected in the hat-shop window displeased
her now; it turned down all round, and though she loved that shape, she
was afraid it was not fashionable this year. And she looked long in the
window of that shop, trying t