et elder children to attend them. Great was the fun. Great was the
noise. On a little dais at the end, coffee and sweet cakes were going,
but there was no rush. When the kiddies wanted a cake they went up and
asked for it; but for the most part they were immersed in that subdued,
serious excitement which means that games are really being enjoyed. All
of the attendants were girls of 12 or 13, of that sweet age between
childhood and flapperhood, when girls are at their loveliest, with short
frocks that dance at every delicate step, and with unconcealed glories
of hair golden or dusky; all morning light and melody and fearlessness,
not yet realizing that they are women. Many of them, shabby and underfed
as they were, were really lovely girls, their beauty shining through
their rags with an almost religious radiance, as to move you to prayer
and tears. Their gentle ways with the baby-children were a joy to watch.
One group was working a model railway. In another a little
twelve-year-old girl was nursing two tinies, and had a cluster of others
at her feet while she read "Jack and the Beanstalk" from a luridly
illustrated rag-book. Another little girl was figuring certain steps of
a dance of her own invention, each step being gravely followed by two
youngsters who could scarcely walk.

Then the wonderful woman--a local woman, she bought a small shop years
ago, and now owns a blazing rank of Stores--who financed the play-room
went to the piano, crashed a few chords, and instantly every head,
golden or brown or dark, was lifted to us. My hostess said something--a
word of invitation--and, as though it were a signal, the crowd leaped
up, and rushed, tumbled, or toddled toward us.

"What about a song?" cried the lady.

"Ooo-er ... rather!"

"What'll we have, then?"

The shrill babel half-stunned me. No two called for the same thing. If
my hearing were correct, they wanted every popular song of the last ten
years. However, we compromised, for a start, on "Jungle-Town," and,
though I felt extremely nervous of such an audience, I gave it them,
and then invited them for the second chorus.

What a chorus! Even the babies, who knew nothing of the words and could
not have spoken them if they had, seemed to know the tune, and they let
it out in every possible key. That song went with a bang, and I had no
rest for at least half an hour. We managed to get them to write their
favourites on slips of paper, and I took them in rotation, t