llas with a studio behind, or two-storeyed components
of "terraces," for about a quarter of a mile; and just before the
War, building speculators were wont to pace its pavements with a
hungry gaze directed to left and right buying up in imagination all
this wasted space, pulling down these pretty stucco nests, and
building in their place castles of flats, high into the air. I don't
suppose this district will escape much longer the destruction of its
graceful flowering trees and vivid gardens, its air of an opulent
village; it will match with the rest of Kensingtonia in huge,
handsome buildings and be much sought after by the people who devote
their lives--till they commit suicide--to illicit love and the
Victory Balls at the Albert Hall. But in 1909--would that we were
all back in 1909!--it was as nice a part of London as a busy,
energetic, sober-living spinster, in the movement, yet liking home
retirement and lilac-scented privacy--could desire to inhabit, at
the absurd rental of fifty pounds a year, with comparatively low
rates, and the need for only one hard-working, self-respecting
Suffragette maid, with the monthly assistance of a charwoman of
advanced views.

There Vivie took up her abode in November of the year indicated.
Honoria lived not far away, next door but one to the Parrys in
Kensington Square. She--Vivie--was aware that Colonel Armstrong did
not altogether like her, couldn't "place" her, felt she wasn't "one
of us," and therefore despite Honoria's many invitations to run in
and out and not to mind dear old "Army" who was _always_ like that
at first, just as their Chow was--she exercised considerable
discretion about her frequentation of the Armstrong household,
though she generally attended Honoria's Suffrage meetings, held
whenever the Colonel was called away to Aldershot or Hythe.

Honoria by this time--the close of 1909--was the mother of four
lovely, healthy, happy children. She would give birth to a fifth the
following June (1910), and then perhaps she would stop. She often
said about this time--touching wood as she did so--"could any woman
be happier?" She was so happy that she believed in God, went
sometimes to St. Mary Abbott's or St. Paul's, Knightsbridge--the
music was so jolly--and gave largely to cheerful charities as well
as to the Suffrage Cause. She would in the approach to Christmas,
1909, look round and survey her happiness: could any one have a more
satisfactory husband? Of course he