m. From the eerie of the top landing window one could get a bird's-
eye view of the Napier Terrace gardens with their miniature grass plots,
their smutty flower-beds, and the dividing walls with their clothing of
blackened ivy. Some people were ambitious, and lavished unrequited
affection on struggling rose-trees in a centre bed, others contented
themselves with a blaze of homely nasturtiums; others, again, abandoned
the effort after beauty, hoisted wooden poles, and on Monday mornings
floated the week's washing unashamed. In Number Two the tenant kept
pigeons; Number Four owned a real Persian cat, who basked majestic on
the top of the wall, scorning his tortoiseshell neighbours.

When the lamps were lit, it was possible also to obtain glimpses into
the dining-rooms of the two end houses, if the maids were not in too
great a hurry to draw down the blinds. A newly married couple had
recently come to live in the corner house--a couple who wore evening
clothes every night, and dined in incredible splendour at half-past
seven. It was thrilling to behold them seated at opposite sides of the
gay little table, all a-sparkle with glass and silver, to watch course
after course being handed round, the final dallying over dessert.

On one never-to-be-forgotten occasion, suddenly and without the
slightest warning, bride and bridegroom had leaped from their seats and
begun chasing each other wildly round the table. She flew, he flew; he
dodged, she screamed (one could _see_ her scream!) dodged again, and
flew wildly in an opposite direction. The chase continued for several
breathless moments, then, to the desolation of the beholders, swept out
of sight into the fastnesses of the front hall.

Never--no, never--could the bitterness of that disappointment be
outlived. To have been shut out from beholding the _denouement_--it was
_too_ piteous! In vain Darsie expended herself on flights of
imagination, in vain rendered in detail the conversation which had led
up to the thrilling chase--the provocation, the threat, the defiance--
nothing but the reality could have satisfied the thirst of curiosity of
the beholders. Would he kiss her? Would he beat her? Would she
triumph? Would she cry? Was it a frolic, or a fight? Would the morrow
find them smiling and happy as of yore, or driving off in separate cabs
to take refuge in the bosoms of their separate families? Darsie opined
that all would _seem_ the same on the surface, but