s. Above that come the two windows of the
best bedroom belonging to Mr. and Mrs., and above that again the windows
of two small rooms, respectively inhabited by the eldest son and
daughter; and these are topped by the mock-Elizabethan gable which
enframes the tiny window of a servant's room. Each house has a pair of
trim stone pillars, the crude green of the Venetian blinds jars the
cultured eye, and even the tender green of the foliage in the crescent
seems as cheap and as common as if it had been bought--as everything
else is in Ashbourne Crescent--at the Stores. But how much does this
crescent of shrubs mean to the neighbourhood? Is it not there that the
old ladies take their pugs for their constitutional walks, and is it not
there that the young ladies play tennis with their gentleman
acquaintances when they come home from the City on a Saturday afternoon?

In Ashbourne Crescent there is neither Dissent nor Radicalism, but
general aversion to all considerations which might disturb belief in all
the routine of existence, in all its temporal and spiritual aspects, as
it had come amongst them. The fathers and the brothers go to the City
every day at nine, the young ladies play tennis, read novels, and beg to
be taken to dances at the Kensington Town Hall. On Sunday the air is
alive with the clanging of bells, and in orderly procession every family
proceeds to church, the fathers in all the gravity of umbrellas and
prayer-books, the matrons in silk mantles and clumsy ready-made elastic
sides; the girls in all the gaiety of their summer dresses with lively
bustles bobbing, the young men in frock-coats which show off their broad
shoulders--from time to time they pull their tawny moustaches. Each
house keeps a cook and housemaid, and on Sunday afternoons, when the
skies are flushed with sunset and the outlines of this human warren grow
harshly distinct--black lines upon pale red--these are seen walking
arm-in-arm away towards a distant park with their young men.

Ashbourne Crescent, with its bright brass knockers, its white-capped
maid-servant, and spotless oilcloths, will pass away before some great
tide of revolution that is now gathering strength far away, deep down
and out of sight in the heart of the nation, is probable enough; but for
the moment it is, in all its cheapness and vulgarity, more than anything
else representative, though the length and breadth of the land be
searched, of the genius of Empire that has bee