k died away.

I almost felt as though I were in a dream, as the moving kaleidoscope
of horses and carriages and foot-passengers passed before my eyes.

Yesterday at this time I was sitting in poor Robert Lambert's whitewashed
attic, listening to the sparrows that were twittering under the eaves.
When I had left the cottage I had walked down country roads, meeting
nothing but a donkey-cart and two tramps.

Now the sunshine was playing on the rhododendrons and on the green leaves
of the trees in Hyde Park. A brass band had struck up in the distance.
The riders were cantering up and down the Row, to the admiration of the
well-dressed crowds that sauntered under the trees or lingered by the
railings. Carriages were passing and repassing. A four-in-hand drove past
us, followed by a tandem. Beautiful young faces smiled out of the
carriages. A few of them looked weary and careworn. Now and then under
the smart bonnet one saw the pinched weazened face of old age,--dowagers
in big fur capes looking out with their dim hungry eyes on the follies of
Vanity Fair. One wondered at the set senile smile on these old faces;
they had fed on husks all their lives, and the food had failed to nourish
them; their strength had failed over the battle of life, but they still
refused to leave the field of their former triumphs. Everywhere in these
fashionable crowds one sees these pale meagre faces that belong to a past
age. They wear gorgeous velvets, jewels, feathers, paint: like Jezebel,
they would look out of the window curiously to the last. How one longs to
take them gently out of the crowd, to wash their poor cheeks, and lead
them to some quiet home, where they may shut their tired eyes in peace!
'What is the world to you?' one would say to them. 'You have done all
your tasks,--well or badly; leave the arena to the young and the strong;
it is no place for you; come home and rest, before the dark angel finds
you in your tinsel and gewgaws.' Would they listen to me, I wonder?

Sara's soft dimples came into play presently. A pretty blush rose to her
face. A tall man with a bronzed handsome face and iron-gray moustache had
detached himself from the other riders, and was cantering towards the
carriage that was now drawn up near the entrance: in another moment he
had checked his horse with some difficulty.

'I have been looking out for you the last three-quarters of an hour,' he
said, addressing Sara. 'I could not see the carriage anywhere.--