exchanged more than a dozen words, I felt that we were quite intimate
and very dear friends.

The little group of grown-ups and the child were always together on the
front, where I was accustomed to see them sitting or slowly walking up
and down, always deep in conversation and very serious, always
regarding the more or less gaudily attired females on the parade with
an expression of repulsion. They were old-fashioned in dress and
appearance, invariably in black--black silk and black broadcloth. I
concluded that they were serious people, that they had inherited and
faithfully kept a religion, or religious temper, which has long been
outlived by the world in general--a puritanism or Evangelicalism dating
back to the far days of Wilberforce and Hannah More and the ancient
Sacred order of Claphamites.

And the child was serious with them and kept pace with them with slow
staid steps. But she was beautiful, and under the mask and mantle which
had been imposed on her had a shining child's soul. Her large eyes were
blue, the rare blue of a perfect summer's day. There was no need to ask
her where she had got that colour; undoubtedly in heaven "as she came
through." The features were perfect, and she pale, or so it had seemed
to me at first, but when viewing her more closely I saw that colour was
an important element in her loveliness--a colour so delicate that I
fell to comparing her flower-like face with this or that particular
flower. I had thought of her as a snowdrop at first, then a windflower,
the March anemone, with its touch of crimson, then various white,
ivory, and cream-coloured blossoms with a faintly-seen pink blush to
them.

Her dress, except the stocking, was not black; it was grey or dove-