enameled in the ordinary characters of municipal direction. Here were
the two posts: here was the narrow entrance. The rumble of the traffic
grew fainter. On one side was a high blank wall; on the other a row of
two-storied houses. They were naturally dwellings of the poorer classes,
but at intervals a painter had acquired one, and had painted it white or
affixed green shutters with heart-shaped openings. The width of the
pavement varied continually, but generally at the beginning it was very
narrow. Later on, however, it became wide enough to allow trees to be
planted down the middle. Beyond this part was a block of new flats round
which Tinderbox Lane narrowed again to a mere alley looking now rather
dank and gloomy in the rain. Michael could not remember from last night
in the fog either the trees or the flats. The door of Lily's lodging had
been set in a wall: here on one side was certainly a wall, but never a
door to relieve the grimy blankness. He began to feel discouraged, and
he walked round into the narrow alley behind the flats. Here were doors
in the wall at last, and Michael examined each of them in turn. Two were
dark blue: one was green: one was brown. 74: 75: 76: 77. He chose 77
because it was farthest away from the flats. After a very long wait, an
old woman holding over herself a very large umbrella opened it.

"Mrs. Gainsborough ...?" Michael began.

But the old woman had slammed the door before he could finish his
inquiry.

Michael rang the bell of 76, and again he waited a long time. At last
the door was opened, and to his relief he saw Mrs. Gainsborough herself
under a green and much larger umbrella than the old woman's next door.

"I've come to take the girls out to lunch."

"That's a good boy," she wheezed. "The dearies will be glad to get out
and enjoy themselves a bit. Here's a day. This would have suited Noah,
wouldn't it?"

She was leading the way up the gravel path, and Michael saw that in the
garden-beds there were actually Christmas roses in bloom. The house
itself was covered with a mat of Virginia creeper and jasmine, and the
astonishing rusticity of it was not at all diminished by the pretentious
gray houses of the next road which towered above it behind, nor even in
front by the flats with their eruption of windows. These houses with
doors in their garden-walls probably all belonged to individuals, and
for that reason they had escaped being overwhelmed by the development of
the