"I daresay you are right," said she. "Certainly, the purlieus of old
Clerkenwell present a very confused picture to me; whereas, in the case
of an old street like, say, Great Ormond Street, one has only to sweep
away the modern buildings and replace them with glorious old houses like
the few that remain, dig up the roadway and pavements and lay down
cobble-stones, plant a few wooden posts, hang up one or two oil-lamps,
and the transformation is complete. And a very delightful transformation
it is."

"Very delightful; which, by the way, is a melancholy thought. For we
ought to be doing better work than our forefathers; whereas what we
actually do is to pull down the old buildings, clap the doorways,
porticoes, panelling, and mantels in our museums, and then run up
something inexpensive and useful and deadly uninteresting in their
place."

My companion looked at me and laughed softly. "For a naturally cheerful,
and even gay young man," said she, "you are most amazingly pessimistic.
The mantle of Jeremiah--if he ever wore one--seems to have fallen on
you, but without in the least impairing your good spirits excepting in
regard to matters architectural."

"I have much to be thankful for," said I. "Am I not taken to the Museum
by a fair lady? And does she not stay me with mummy cases and comfort me
with crockery?"

"Pottery," she corrected; and then, as we met a party of grave-looking
women emerging from a side-street, she said: "I suppose those are lady
medical students."

"Yes, on their way to the Royal Free Hospital. Note the gravity of their
demeanour and contrast it with the levity of the male student."

"I was doing so," she answered, "and wondering why professional women
are usually so much more serious than men."

"Perhaps," I suggested, "it is a matter of selection. A peculiar type of
woman is attracted to the professions, whereas every man has to earn his
living as a matter of course."

"Yes, I daresay that is the explanation. This is our turning."

We passed into Heathcote Street, at the end of which was an open gate
giving entrance to one of those disused and metamorphosed burial-grounds
that are to be met with in the older districts of London; in which the
dispossessed dead are jostled into corners to make room for the living.
Many of the headstones were still standing, and others, displaced to
make room for asphalted walks and seats, were ranged around by the
walls, exhibiting inscriptions made mean