hard seat would be nearly an easy-chair, were it not for the damp smell of soaked overcoats, the ceaseless rumble, and the knockings overhead outside. The noise is immensely worse than the shaking or the steamy atmosphere, the noise ground into the ears, and wearying the mind to a state of drowsy narcotism -you become chloroformed through the sense of hearing, a condition of dreary resignation and uncom fortable ease. The illuminated shops seem to pass like an endless window without division of doors; there are groups of people staring in at them in spite of the rain; ill-clad, half-starving people for the most part; the well-dressed hurry onwards; they have homes. A dull feeling of satisfaction creeps over you that you are at least in shelter; the rumble is a little better than the wind and the rain and the puddles. If the Greek sculptors were to come to life again and cut us out in bas-relief for another Parthenon, they would have to represent us shuffling along, heads down and coat-tails flying, splash-splosh-a nation of umbrellas.

Under a broad archway, gaily lighted, the broad and happy way to a theatre, there is a small crowd waiting, and among them two ladies, with their backs to the photographs and bills, looking out into the street. They stand side by side, evidently quite oblivious and indifferent to the motley folk about them, chatting and laughing, taking the wet and windy wretchedness of the night as a joke. They are both plump and rosy-cheeked, dark eyes gleaming and red lips parted; both decidedly good-looking, much too rosy and full-faced, too well fed and

comfortable to take a prize from Burne-Jones, very worldly people in the roast-beef sense. Their faces glow in the bright light-merry sea coal-fire faces; they have never turned their backs on the good things of this life. "Never shut the door on good fortune," as Queen Isabella of Spain says. Wind and rain may howl and splash, but here are two faces they never have touched-rags and battered shoes drift along the pavement-no wet feet or cold necks here. Best of all they glow with good spirits, they laugh, they chat; they are full of enjoyment, clothed thickly with health and happiness, as their shoulders-good wide shoulders-are thickly wrapped in warmest furs. The 'bus goes on, and they are lost to view; if you came back in an hour you would find them still there without doubt—still jolly, chatting, smiling, waiting perhaps for the stage, but anyhow far removed, like the goddesses on Olympus, from the splash and misery of London. Drive on.

The head of a great gray horse in a van drawn up by the pavement, the head and neck stand out and conquer the rain and misty dinginess by sheer force of of beauty, sheer strength of character. He turns his head-his neck forms a fine curve, his face is full of intelligence, in spite of the half dim light and the driving rain, of the thick atmosphere, and the black hollow of the covered van behind, his head and neck stand out, just as in old portraits the face is still bright, though surrounded with crusted varnish. It would be a glory to any man to paint him. Drive on.

How strange the dim, uncertain faces of the crowd,

half-seen, seem in the hurry and rain; faces held downwards and muffled by the darkness--not quite human in their eager and intensely concentrated haste. No one thinks of or notices another-on, on-splash, shove, and scramble; an intense selfishness, so selfish as not to be selfish, if that can be understood, so absorbed as to be past observing that any one lives but themselves. Human beings reduced to mere hurrying machines, worked by wind and rain, and stern necessities of life; driven on; something very hard and unhappy in the thought of this. They seem reduced to the condition of the wooden cabs-the mere vehicles-pulled along by the irresistible horse Circumstance. They shut their eyes mentally, wrap themselves in the overcoat of indifference, and drive on, drive on. It is time to get out at last. The 'bus stops on one side of the street, and you have to cross to the other. Look up and down-lights are rushing each way, but for the moment none are close. The gas-lamps shine in the puddles of thick greasy water, and by their gleam you can guide yourself round them. Cab coming! Surely he will give way a little and not force you into that great puddle; no, he neither sees, nor cares, Drive on, drive on. Quick! the shafts! Step in the puddle and save your life!

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THE END.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES,