c. It
swooped about us, and inquired, conjectured, disapproved, condemned.

Then came several blue helmets and swift dispersal.

The affair was over.

AN ART NIGHT

CHELSEA

_A LONDON MOMENT_

_Often have I, in my desolate years,
Flogged a jaded heart in loud saloons;
Often have I fled myself with tears,
Wandering under pallid, passionate moons._

_Often have I slunk through pleasured rites,
Lonely in the tumult of decay;
Often marked the hectic London nights
Flowing from the violet-lidded day._

_Yet, because of you, the world has been
Kindlier. Oh, little heart-o'-rose,
I have glimpsed a beauty seldom seen
In this labyrinthine mist of woes._

_Beauty smiles at me from common things,
All the way from Fleet Street to the Strand;
Even in the song the barmaid sings
I have found a fresh enchanted land._

_Pass me by, you little vagrant joy.
Brush me from your delicate mimic world.
Nothing of you now can e'er annoy,
Since your beauty has my heart empearled._

_Pass me by; and only let me say:
Glad I am for pain of loving you,
Glad--for, in the tumult of decay,
Life is nobler than I ever knew._

AN ART NIGHT

CHELSEA

"The choicest bit of London!" That is William Dean Howells' impression
of Chelsea. And, if you would perceive rightly the soul of Chelsea, you
must view it through the pearl-grey haze of just such a temperament as
that of the suave American novelist. If you have not that temperament,
then Chelsea is not for you; try Hampstead or Streatham or Bayswater.

Of all suburbs it is the most subtle. It has more soul in one short
street than you will find in the whole mass of Oxford Street and
Piccadilly. There is something curiously feminine and intoxicating in
the quality of its charm, something that evokes the silver-pensive mood.
One visions it as a graceful spinster--watered silks, ruffles, corkscrew
curls, you know, with lily fingers caressing the keys of her
harpsichord. Pass down Cheyne Walk at whatever time you will, and you
are never alone; little companies of delicate fancy join you at every
step. The gasworks may gloom at you from the far side. The L.C.C. cars
may hum and clang. But fancy sweeps them away. It is like sitting amid
the barbarities of a Hyde Park drawing-room, in the emerald dusk,
listening to the pathetic whe